More than an Act
by lamatikah
Summary: Drama lessons sure were going to be FUNFUNFUN! .:This story contains bloodthirsty moogles, a Riku who can't spell and a jealous Kairi:. .:AkuRoku SoKai Namiku:. And more...
1. Prologue

-More than an act-

-prologue-

The mid-western cowboy like music accompanied the six teenagers as they glared at each other from opposite sides of the canteen. The scent of tacos wafted in the air from half-consumed meals, the children setting down their knives and forks to look up to survey the scene. They drew forwards to face each other, numerous one-second shots of eyes narrowing and feet shuffling darting around to capture the moment like some crappy, low-budget film where it's impossible to tell what's going on because of all the 'dramatic' camera shifts. Nobody dared breath, as the tumbleweed blew across the prairie in the form of an eldery lunch lady mumbling something in her shaky voice about 'bloody kids'.

Roxas looked around at the trio of evil people assembled in front of him, angling his school bag slightly, making it look like he was drawing a gun. Sometimes he _wished_ he had a gun, when confronted by those three something inside him said it would be far more helpful to be able to shoot them then read Algebra notes to them.

Axel looked a little bored, chewing lazily on the stick of gum in his mouth, not caring that it was loosing its taste, becoming grey and sickly. He knew he looked 'cool' with his mouth working up and down and arms crossed, and it helped that he was so damned tall. Nobody dared cross him, but with Roxas he was little and blonde with blue eyes and people wouldn't think twice about poking him as they walked to class. But wait, somebody already did that, and the out-come wasn't too pretty … A little bit like boy he was glaring at.

Sora looked completely innocent as he smiled in his irritating way, making the girl next to him elbow him in the ribs. He didn't appear to have understood the message, however, because he remained smiling brightly, looking around the students who had ceased eating, grinning. Yes, his hair DID look that cool today, yes, everybody SHOULD stare at him. He smiled in an adorable way and seemed to consider blowing kisses to them. The camera quickly shifted past this … creature … because it was ruining the mood.

Naminé wasn't the sort of person you'd expect to ever get really angry at something, she seemed too little and cute. She was shy and wasn't really comfortable with all the people staring at them like vultures waiting for the fight to break out for it was common knowledge the two groups hated each other. Well, Sora didn't hate anybody and was obviously mentally retarded by the way he found curtains so amusing. However, like most shy people, she could be really, really stubborn, and she was going to stand her ground and clench her fists and not look like she was on crack like Sora.

Kairi frowned slightly, scuffing the tips of her worn-out trainers on the floor beneath her, her crimson hair blowing around her like a storm of blood. She was one of the most active members of the drama club, and knew how to act – in all the plays she got the lead roles and always reduced parents to tears as she broke their hearts with her sad words. Kairi would be breaking a lot more than hearts, she thought bitterly, glaring at Axel and his stick-like limbs. It would be fun to break them all… She scowled at the little green cricket jumping around in her head screaming about how violence was a … virtue … or some crap, as she hissed: "Shut up, Jiminy…"

Riku glared across at Kairi who dared look like she wanted to decapitate Naminé, because it was obvious the blonde haired girl was far, far, FAR cooler than everybody apart from Riku himself. Because Riku was always cool. Always, always, always, even when that damned moogle the neighbours had attacked him resulting in a rough and bloody game of mortal combat. The moogle had won THAT time, but Riku struck terror in its stupid little pom-pom thingy-ma-jigger by leaving a threatening note saying 'i wil bee back bak hahahahahahahahahahahahaha'. It really scared the moogle because of all the spelling errors and the fact the paper had been crumpled up several times when he could not spell 'I' or 'will' or 'be' or 'back' or 'hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.'

Just as the atmosphere reached its climax, just as Axel opened his mouth to start the whole chain reaction that resulting in six hungry teenagers marched out of the canteen with numerous broken limbs, Sora smelled an angel of some sort. And it wasn't even Kairi this time, because this angel couldn't hit him when he proclaimed loudly about his undying love for curtains and floor polish and his pet moogle that kept attacking Riku.

"I LOVE TACOS!" roared the boy, darting forwards towards the long line, grinning like a mad-man. "TACO TACO TACO TACO TACOTACOTACOTACOTACOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" chanted the demon-possessed boy, as the lunch ladies put their hands over their ears, and Kairi slapped her head lightly. Mostly to kill Jiminy, and partly to express her annoyance over Sora ruining their big dramatic moment.

He wouldn't last two seconds in their up-coming drama lesson.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Right, Kairi, Riku," Riku and Kairi glared at each other, then averted their eyes to their teacher who was telling them that they would be paired for the year. They hoped they'd be doing Midsomer Murders … or something along the lines of that.

"But miss…" Kairi whined, Miss Gainsborough just looked at her and Kairi shut up.

"Er … let's see where was I, ah yes, Selphie and Tidus, Yuffie and Leon, and is there anyone else here?" She peered over the thirty-odd children, "Oh yes, Naminé and Sora … I'm sure there's someone else…" Kairi looked like she wanted to throw a vase at Naminé, Naminé looked like she wanted to throw a vase at Sora.

"Miss!" she moaned, as _it _sidled up to her happily, "Why do I have to have _him_!" Aerith Gainsborough thought about it for a moment and then left the girl to contemplate for herself.

"Right, who's left?" She leaned over to find any kids who had been hiding, trying to dodge getting partnered up. "Ah! Roxas! Now who should we partner you with?"

"SORRYTHATI'MLATEMISSBUTSORA'SMOOGLEFOLLOWEDMETOSCHOOLANDITRIEDTOKICKITBUTIT**ATTACKED**MEANDTHENIWASLIKE_OW_ANDTHENTHETEACHERWASLIKEWHATAREYOUDOINGANDISAIDINEEDTOGETRIDOFTHEFUCKINGTHINGANDTHENTHEYTOLDMEOFFFORSWEARINGANDTHENIRANHEREANDTHEYPUTTHEMOOGLE … somewhere…"

"Ah! Axel! Just in time!" smiled Miss Gainsborough, a little too evilly for the boy's liking, "I want you to go stand next to Roxas and then I'll tell you what we're doing today," Axel gormlessly walked over to the blonde haired kid who was standing, hands in pockets, fists clenched and brow knotted into an 'I R CROSS' position.

"OK class, let's begin, today we're going to start off by doing some warm ups, now pretend you are tree … er, Sora, what the hell are you doing?" eyeing the boy critically as he rolled on the floor screaming about some sort of 'damned axe' clutching to Naminé's legs or 'roots' as it were.

"Naminé-tree! Save me! The axe is COMING!" Aerith coughed and Sora sat up, "Oh sorry miss! I wasn't meant to talk was I, OK, I'll just roll around and pretend my leaves are talking to me … NOOOOOO, the leaves are TALKING! Oh, what was that? You say you can see up Naminé's dress, why it's a funny thing that I can too!" Naminé jumped back squealing, crashing into Yuffie who landed on top of Leon who mumbled something like, 'how ironic'.

"YUFFIE GET UP! NAMINÉ STOP SCREAMING! SORA THE LEAVES ARE **NOT **TALKING TO YOU!" Kairi screamed at the top of her voice, to everyone but the dumbasses in the class, it looked like Kairi wanted Sora to look up _her_ dress, not Naminé's. "SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!" The class immediately 'shut up' and turned attention to the scary girl.

"Thank you Kairi, right class, oh, hello … Ansem…" The class swiftly moved their heads to see their headteacher standing there with an odd look on his face.

"Erm … very good, carry on Aerith … very good…" he walked off, obviously forgetting what he'd come for. He looked too horrified to stay in the room for much longer.

"Right … anyway kids, I guess that's the end of the warm-ups then. This year we'll be focusing mainly on romantic scripts and dialogues. Is that good?" Roxas twisted his face up to Axel's with a look of pure horror, as though he'd just seen a bucket of maggots.

"Wait … er … miss…" he began, sticking his hand up in the air with as much force as a rocket taking off and waving it about maniacally. Miss Gainsborough ignored him and carried on explaining to the class what they were going to be doing that very day. She told them that she had written every single script that she will have placed in front of them by the end of the year.

"Miss, will it smushy stuff, because I'm not reading smushystuff to … Kairi…" Riku explained, Aerith nodded her head and wrote on the board, 'TODAY WE WILL BE DOING A DIALOGUE ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THE PERSON STANDING NEXT TO YOU,' Riku, Naminé, Kairi, Axel and Roxas cringed. Sora giggled.

"What does looooove mean?" he asked his partner, she slapped her forehead. She was not going to explain what 'looooove' meant.

"Sora, love is when you have feelings for someone…" Aerith explained cautiously, she was not sure what the reply would be but she was certain it would be unpredictable.

"Oh OK! Naminé, I have a feeling that you are cute, I guess that means I LOVE you!" Kairi looked very, very, very annoyed and left-out.

"OK, kids, off you go," everyone pretended they were doing something useful but really they were just trying to turn round and see what Axel and Roxas were doing. Miss Gainsborough didn't notice that they were though. Kairi and Riku were having a heated discussion over whether she loooooved Sora or not, and Naminé was screaming at Sora that she didn't love him.

"Er…" Roxas uncomfortably stuttered, he had two options, he could either look at the sea of faces, sniggering and pointing at him, or he could look at Axel who was sniggering and pointing, "I donn't see why you're so happy – you're part of the pair too!" Axel drooped his head and kicked the wall.

"Don't say anything … or I'll fucking kill you," Axel promised Roxas, he glared at all the other classmates, "Nosy bitches…" if they were so interested in that kind of thing then why didn't they go to a G-A-Y bar. Roxas nodded sheepishly and looked away, trying to ignore Yuffie giggling and whispering something to Leon. He then passed it on to Selphie, then Tidus and so on. He felt like he was part of some sort of freak show.

"Come on you two, start expressing your undying love for each other! Or I'll have to give you an even worse assignment…" Their 'loving' teacher told them merrily, Roxas shuddered; his teacher could be very … imaginative sometimes. Now, even Kairi and Riku had forgotten their differences and were settling down to see what would happen next.

"Er … I love you?" Roxas mumbled in a questioning voice, with no emotion whatsoever apart from maybe embarrassment. Yuffie whooped with delight and even Naminé giggled a bit, seeing Naminé laugh, Sora immediately fell about, rolling on the floor laughing his tiny little head of his off. He had no idea why though. Kairi muttered, 'Bitch,' under her breath to Naminé.

"You fucking retard..." Axel muttered, pressing his hands to his ears as Yuffie started an energetic chorus of, 'ROXAS LOVES AXEL, AXEL LOVES ROXAS, ROXAS LOVES AXEL, AXEL LOVES ROXAS,' Damn that Drama teacher.

"OK, that's enough, get back to work, you shouldn't care what other people say about your … acting. You're doing what I told you to do, so it's OK…" the said teacher grinned, as though thinking about whether she should start joining in with Yuffie's 'fun' chant.

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: Yo! Tis Lamatikah speaking, since this is done by both me and Skitts, I think we should both have something to say about each chapter! Anyways … I don't really have much to say…_

_S/N: Yo what appears to be up? This be … your MOTHER. Yes, no it's Skitts. Anyway, this … PROLOGUE (not chapter) was fun to write. I wrote the first section, Lamatikah the rest but I came up with some of the stuff that happens and crap and a few more adjectives and stuff to use and … CRRRAAAPPPP. … Damn._


	2. I hate Axel

-Chapter 1-

-I hate Axel-

"Fucking bastard, went and fucking said that he loved me … I mean, who does that?" the boy asked his friends as they sat down watching the sky on top of some sort of hill or something and eating candy. Riku and Naminé were sitting a little further away from Axel and a little too close to each other for his liking. As if they were lost in their own world. They didn't seem to want to bother listening to his problems. It was boring.

"Hmmm … Riku?" Naminé asked the boy next to her dreamily. Axel was outraged, she'd totally blown him off. Riku nodded. "Riku? Do you think one day we could … we could … AAAAARGH!" A ball missed her by an inch as three other kids looked up and laughed, "PUSH OFF SELPHIE!" she screamed, Selphie had been laughing at her all day for having to be paired up with Sora. But that was nothing compared to how many people had been stopping Axel in the street and proclaiming something that Axel had never known – that Roxas LOVED him! What a surprise!

"Awww … Sora and Naminé! Issocute!" Selphie teased, Riku's face burned bright red as he stood up in frustration and shouted for Selphie, Tidus and their … demon friend to 'FUCK OFF'. "Ooooohhh! You've got an admirer Nams! I wonder if they'd fight for ya! Laters!" she skipped off laughing.

"Retard…" muttered Riku as Naminé looked at him with a confused look on her face. He smiled at her, "Don't believe anything she says, she's a little annoying cow…" Axel laughed, and Riku and Naminé turned to look at him shocked.

"Sorry, it's just … it's just … that was so predictable and funny!" Riku glared at him, Naminé trying to prompt him into further discussion, "Well, can't you tell that Riku fancies you, Nammy? It's so obvious! Aw, sorry Riku, wasn't meant to tell her was I?" Riku shot disgusted glances at Axel as he crossed his arms and looked away. Naminé giggled happily.

"Aw, that's alright Riku; I like you too!" Naminé told him merrily, Riku turned round and smiled.

"It's OK Nams, you don't have to pretend, I'll just … just … it's OK," Naminé giggled again, it was just over a silly little crush, it didn't mean anything. She held his hand as Axel tried to wipe back the tears of laughter, he'd been waiting for this moment for so many years. It was just so funny.

"No, I do like you! C'mon Riku, it's me! You know me. C'mon, I don't care," she smiled and Riku smiled back, they gazed into each other's eyes. Axel got a bit bored after a while and jumped off the little hill thing they were sat upon.

"I'll just leave you two love-birds here then," he told them jauntily walking away. As he looked back, they were still just staring at each other, he shuddered, _Weird…_ he thought.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Teee heee… I … er…" there was a long pause, as Sora nervously scratched the back of his head, making his hair look more explode-ing-y. "Why am I laughing? Oh yes. When Moogle crippled Riku! Hehehehehehehehe!"

Roxas shot a worried glance at Kairi, but she was too busy watching him act like a giggly schoolgirl to pay much attention to how on-crack-like his behaviour was. Well, he always acted like that, and Riku being crippled by a bloodthirsty moogle did make for quite an amusing tale. But he was too pissed off about what happened to drama to find Riku being chased by a little pink thing holding a butcher knife funny.

"Roxas? What's wrong?" asked Kairi, tilting her head slightly. "Don't you find that ANNOYING …" she tried to think up an insult, but calling anything a 'Riku' was insult enough. No, maybe calling somebody a 'Wakka' was worse. "That annoying little BOY deserves to be hounded by moogles, you should have heard what he was saying in drama…"

The blonde-haired boy looked even more annoyed at the mention of the drama lesson and began doing what he did best – sulking. He pouted and rolled his eyes expressively in such a way that would have made Aerith proud, taking a bite out of his sandwich. Sora was surprised it didn't try to run away off the plate from the murderous look he was shooting it.

"Oh, right. Hehehe, that was FUNNY and I don't why it was but it WAS and it was RADICAL! LIKE MOOGLE KILLING RIKU!" chortled Sora in the voice of a two-year-old finding a baby's first pop up book amusing because he mis-read 'butter' as 'butt'.

"Sora … Stop it," said Roxas mildly, eye twitching slightly. "If I have to be paired with him again I dunno what I'll do – I don't want to declare my undying love for AXEL!" he moaned.

"Well, at least he isn't trying to look up YOUR skirt," growled Kairi, referring to Riku. She hated Riku because she COULD and she was COOL like that because it wasn't COOL to like Riku DAMNIT therefore Axel and Naminé were FREAKS especially because SORA LIKE-LIKED HER AND IT WAS ALL CRAPPY.

_Don't worry Kairi, I'm sure if you talked like Mickey Mouse for a day all the pain would go away because there IS a door to the light!_ The annoying little green cricket in her head stated brightly, making Kairi turn and miserably bang her cranium on the wall conveniently situated right next to her. "SHUT UP!" she hissed/shouted/cried, making Roxas give her the shifty eyes and back away in his seat with his precious sandwich in one hand, watching as Sora gave her a hug.

"Well, of course Axel isn't trying to look up my skirt! I don't HAVE a skirt!" cried Roxas, thinking about the drama class. If they went on to costumed role play he MIGHT have to wear one though, if he was going to be the girl. Alright, this was cruel and a sin against nature. "I hatehatehate Axel!" cried the boy, slamming his fist against the table, a nice background noise as Kairi noisily slammed her head again and again against the wall to murder Jiminy because she WASN'T going to talk like Mickey Mouse all day.

It had to be right at that moment that the said red-head walked past, muttering darkly about Riku and Naminé and 'shit' and 'fucking couples' and 'Wakka's hair is un-natural.' And his eyes couldn't help being drawn to Kairi, Roxas and Sora's noisy table, as there seemed to be some rule about sitting there. Apparently, you were only allowed to occupy the spare seat if you hurt yourself as much a humanely possible, as Kairi merrily tried to give herself brain damage, Sora seemed to be trying to HIT her in the form of patting her on the back, and Roxas went about trying to break his hand on the table. And he couldn't help noticing what Roxas was saying over all the din, because nobody else wanted to dine near them and had taken their trays laden with lunch and gone away where the people were more normal and less suicidal.

"I hate Axel!" moaned the boy, not seeming to notice that it actually was starting to hurt hitting the table like that. It was making his plates bounce around to some sort of frenzied 'Tigger-jig'. "I hate him for all this crap that's happening!"

Axel froze, Kairi's voice interjecting the conversation. "I HATE RIKU AND NAMINÉ – RIKU'S A PERV AND NAMINÉ'S STEALING SOR … I mean … Yeah, I hate her…"

Sora smiled brightly as he continued to thwack Kairi around the back, not realising he'd probably give her red marks in the morning. "You know what I hate? SPACEMEN!" he declared brightly, making his friends stop self-harming.

"What?" asked Kairi and Roxas in unison, and Sora continued to elaborate about how they kept coming to him in his dreams in the form of Darth Vader with moogles and vinegar pots.

Even this display of random crap didn't make Axel feel any better, as he moved away before the noticed he had been listening to their weird conversation. 'I hate Axel' Roxas had said. Although he didn't know why he cared – He DIDN'T care. He was pissed off about that whole 'I love you' thing.

Everything was Roxas' fault. And those strange aliens that looked like Darth Vader.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Not this crap again!" Roxas moaned as they entered the Drama Studio, he had been mulling over the whole 'Roxas loves Axel' thing and he'd decided that he hated life and stuff, especially drama.

"But drama's FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!" Sora squealed with delight, "I think I can see Naminé! YAY! I can see up her DRESS again!" Roxas shuddered, he didn't realise that Sora was such a perv, he turned to look at Kairi who had her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

"Why do you WANT to?" he asked him cautiously, Sora looked at and giggled.

"Because she wears LILAC panties!" he told Roxas simply as though telling a little boy that 2 plus 2 equals 59, simply because it did. Roxas shuddered again, he did **not **want to know that…

"We going then?" asked Kairi coldly, she was upset about Sora wanting to look up Naminé's dress, not that she wanted Sora to want to look up her dress, it's just the whole idea of well, SORA LOOKING UP NAMINÉ'S DRESS! The three walked through and immediately the whole room burst into laughter, they'd forgotten that it was possible to hear through the thin, thin walls and thin, thin doors in school.

"Crap…" Roxas swore for Sora. Naminé was blushing bright red, just like Riku. Riku looked at her with mild interest; she turned her head away, so he did the same.

"Not that sort of girl then…" he muttered.

"SHUT UP! GO AWAY! RIKU COME HERE AND DON'T EVEN TRY TO PERV ON ME…" Kairi shouted over all the excited laughter, Riku left Naminé, blushing even more, he looked back at her with an apologetic look on his face.

Roxas scuffed the tip of his shoes as Axel glared at him. Sora skipped merrily over to Naminé, who held onto the edge of her skirt as he sat down on the floor like a little kid and played with his shoelaces.

"Erm … right, anyway kids, today we're going to do some more Romantic … crap," said Aerith, very unprofessionally. She was the nicest teacher on the whole of Destiny Islands, but there weren't many teachers on Destiny Islands so that's not really the point. But, she was nice to the kids and she insisted that they call her Aerith or Aeris, not Miss or Miss Gainsborough, that was just too … formal. She swore a lot as well, "Right, we're going to have a little change though, I'm going to give you a script instead of you making it up after our little … episode yesterday…" another thing about their school, Destiny Islands had nearly _no _creative hobbies that you could take up, so there were three schools, the specialist arts school, the school all the boffs went to, and the salmon-gutting school. Roxas, Kairi, Axel, Riku and Naminé had made a wise choice. Although when Sora had been asked, he had believed that the salmon-gutting school was the best option. Thank god for parents…

"Right, I want some … victims, to read this out for me … erm … let's see…" she scanned the room for some 'willing' victims. "OK, how about we'll have Yuffie and Leon, then … Kairi and Riku, then we'll have our very own Roxas and Axel," the class burst out laughing yet again. Roxas and Axel pouted. Kairi did too, although she was kind of happy that people might realise that Riku looks up her skirt, and they might kill him … or something.

"Right, practice amongst yourselves you six, and I'll talk to the rest of class about love, this lesson is mainly for Sora," she winked at him, as he looked blankly at her, "because he's a stupid little lovable kid aren't ya?" she told him, he nodded, not quite sure what she was saying. Kairi whispered something in his ear and he suddenly sat upright and went green. Kairi giggled and told Naminé to be careful with him, he throws up easily. Naminé glared at her.

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: Kairi is ebul – she told Sora something that he really did not want to know … I really don't know what, but it's relevant that he feels sick later on so … yeah!_

_S/N: Roxas is heartless and Kairi … is being plagued by an invisible cricket who LOOVVVEESSS Mickee Mos. Or Mowse. Anyway, I thought up a good thing to summarise this story: DAMN. Well, I write like a sixth of each of these chapters and Freya writes most of it. And just for the road: MARACCAS AT THE MANGER!_


	3. Sora still don't get it

-Chapter 2-

-Sora still don't get it-

"STOP LOOKING YOU LITTLE PERV!" Kairi's shouts could be heard over Sora's many questions about love, people had started to get bored of Sora's dumbass-ness and were having fun watching the freak shows which were Roxas and Axel, Yuffie and Leon and Kairi and Riku.

"Kairi, that's not in the script…" Riku pleaded.

"YOU LOOKING UP MY SKIRT IS NOT IN THE SCRIPT!" she screamed at him, Riku's face crumpled. Kairi pouted and crossed her arms, spinning away from the boy.

"YES! But people in love do that – IT'S IMPROVISING!" Riku countered, watching Kairi's skirt cautiously as she spun round, pulling it down, exposing more of her stomach than she would've liked.

"NO! PERVS DO THAT!" she screamed at him before grabbing a random coat and tying it round her waist at the front. Suddenly Riku felt like walking behind Kairi, "GET LOST!"

Axel had grown bored of this little scene and was watching Roxas coldly, Roxas turned round and jumped back as he saw the look on the red-head's face, "You hate me then?" asked Axel. Roxas pulled a face.

"What?" Axel explained that he saw Roxas and Kairi inflicting pain upon themselves whilst cursing Axel and his friends. Roxas gulped, he'd no idea why Axel brought this up; he had thought that Axel hated him just as much as he hated Axel. Maybe not. "Well … My hand hurt … so, maybe I was just being … stupid … but I thought you hated me and Kairi and Sora as well…"

"Oh, I do, it's just when people start saying they hate me openly, it annoys me…" Axel told the smaller boy, he then pointed at the pieces of paper in Roxas' hand, "Screw them up and put them in the bin, we've 'lost' them," he told him.

"Er … right … OK…" Roxas screwed them up and put them in the bin. Aerith was still busy, trying aimlessly to fix Sora's love issue. "What are we going to do instead?"

"Nothing … nothing at all…" the red-head told him, "Let's watch Sora…"

"Is love looking up Naminé's skirt?" the boy asked his teacher, he still felt a bit weak from Kairi's little notation, Aerith looked disgusted.

"No, Sora, no it is not, if you look up Naminé's skirt in public, you _will_ get arrested, mark my words, mark my words…"

∞∙∞∙∞

Roxas may not have learnt anything about 'love' or 'Shakespeare' but it had been educational in it's own funny, whimsical way. He had, for instance, learnt Yuffie really, REALLY couldn't act and burst into a fit of girlish giggles any time a word beginning with 'L' was mentioned. Even 'leprechaun' had prompted a laugh from her. And well, when Aerith had said to go sit back down with 'Leon' she had exploded in a mad fit of laughter worthy of a Sora watching Riku getting chased by a moogle with butcher knife.

And Kairi and Riku's production, well, the less said about that the better. They had dropped their scripts half-way through – because who needs scripts really? – and started an animated shouting match. If it had been performed outside Riku would have been in jail right now for harassing Kairi. Naminé didn't look happy that he was following Sora's example, and her face had stained the colour of a beetroot.

"Alright, it's time for Axel and Roxas to show us what they've prepared," said the slightly distressed Aerith, who was worried they'd end up in a fist-fight like Kairi and Riku had before Leon pulled them each other. This 'love' business didn't seem to be touching anybody – well, it touched Yuffie alright, but it was like she was being poked with a feather and she couldn't stop laughing about it.

"Miss, we, uh … lost … the … script … Sora's moogle ate it," said Roxas, hoping that she'd laugh at this last statement and not care, because he did want to get good grades and not end up working behind the counter in McDonald's.

"MY MOOGLE! IS HE DEAD! IS HE OK! WHEN HE ATE A LARGE CHUNK OF RIKU'S HAIR HE HAD TO GO TO ANIMAL HOSPITAL!" cried the distressed Sora, hugging Naminé frantically as if she were a pillow, making Kairi growl like a lion. "Naminé! Save me from this depressing vortex of crap!"

"… He was joking, Sora," said Aerith in a dry voice, turning to look at Axel and Roxas. She wasn't in the best of moods, although she would never shout at anybody. "Oh, there's some more scripts over there," she said, lazily motioning towards several stacks of papers. "But get the right ones, some are for my year eleven group and they ain't stuff you should be reading."

Axel nodded and mumbled something that sounded like: "I hate life…" as he went over to retrieve two pieces of paper from a teetering stack, handing one to his partner, making sure he crushed his fingers before giving it to him. He wasn't a happy bunny. He wasn't even a bunny. HE DID NOT HAVE RABBIT EARS, however much Sora thought so.

"Right… Um … Balh blah blah, Oh yeah! Right, er … Words cannot describe how much I love you, you mean the … world … to … me…" A blush started to creep over Roxas' face as he read on, Yuffie's laughter cut rudely through their nice little performance.

"Er … I love you too, you cannot believe how much what you said to me … means to … me … er … miss…" Axel's voice broke off; he definitely did not remember that in the other plays. But then again, after the first sentence Kairi and Riku's 'heart-wrenching' display had turned into a fist-fight with both of them trying to see who could slug each other in the face harder. And Yuffie had been laughing too much to make any incoherent sounds that could be related to the English alphabet – maybe the German one if she was lucky. VERY lucky. "Miss, do we have to do everything it says on the script?" he asked, trying to disguise the fact that he was blushing because he was Axel and Axel DIDN'T blush and when red-heads blushed their faces ended up looking like tomatoes.

"Yes, Axel…" responded the woman with a smile on her face. "No need to be embarrassed, this is drama! But if this is too babyish for you I could get a year eleven script out for you."

Roxas felt sick – he'd READ ON. And if that sort of crap was in their script, he shuddered to think what in the … other … script. Were they all sex-mad perverts there?

"Uhm…" said Roxas, looking down at the floor. "This is just … drama… So it doesn't mean anything … So … Yeah…" he muttered to his shoes, as if they would answer him, or become bewitched so he'd start to tap-dance in a frenzied way and be excused all the rest of drama. Unfortunately, no such mad dance started, and everybody was looking at them. Well, almost everybody, Leon was too busy trying to stop Kairi punching Riku again … and again … and again … and again … and some more … and maybe a few more after that … and one more for good luck.

"Alright then let's get this over with," said Axel quickly, deciding he better just finish the stupid play now then go and resort to his dark pit of gloom. He strode forwards in about two brisk steps, lifted the blonde haired boy's head up, and let his lips cross his in a quick motion.

And that was probably why everybody started laughing. But Naminé didn't. Because Sora had been sick all over her dress, Kairi's words about … boys … and love … coming back to haunt him. And Naminé's dress got the best of it.

"Oh dear… It appears you picked up the wrong script..." said Aerith, suppressing a giggle, as she looked at the very shifty looking Axel, the dazed Roxas, and the very, very sick Sora. "Oh dear…" she repeated. "I wonder if the smell of sick ever washes out…" she thought aloud, making Naminé groan, looking like she was going to puke up her guts as well.

That she did, that she did. Yay! Now two people were sick – it was probably some sort of record in a drama class.

∞∙∞∙∞

"It's not fair!" sobbed Roxas as Kairi hugged him, "It's not fair, everytime I try to do something right, I fall and land on my ass. It's not fair…" Kairi squeezed him tighter and tried to comfort him.

"It doesn't matter, at least that bitch was sick…" Kairi told him, she felt so sorry for him. He really was trying his best, he had hated it at first when the only school on Destiny Islands had split into three parts and Roxas had been put in a group he couldn't relate to at all. If he had been put in any of the groups, he wouldn't have been able to relate to them, "C'mon, Roxas, don't cry…" Kairi told the boy as Sora sidled up to them. He was acting edgy around Roxas. The first time he saw the blonde boy after the kiss, he had thrown up again. Then he had thrown up in the Welfare Centre at school. Then he had come back to Kairi and Roxas, thrown up again, and now he was coming back to meet them for a third time.

"Hello Kairi, hello … Roxas…" his face went pale, but he didn't throw up this time, just burped and coughed a bit.

"Hi Sora, you OK now?" asked Kairi gently, she wasn't feeling murderous anymore, when she was with Roxas alone, he was usually murderous enough for the two of them.

"Yeah, the nurse says I should stay away from you, because she says I'm majorly homophobic … but I'm not afraid of my house!" he chirruped brightly, his voice swaying a little. Kairi gave him a hug too, she felt like giving hugs, she might even give one to Riku if he passed, Riku walked past, murderous feeling back. No, she'd rather stab him with a butcher's knife than hug him, where was that damned moogle when she needed it?

Roxas wiped back the tears and watched Axel walk past with his friends.

"You OK Axel?" asked Naminé for the fiftieth time, Axel nodded, he didn't want her to be sick again, like Sora, she seemed to be addicted to being sick. It wasn't as if he was gay or anything, it was only for drama, and it's not as if he actually liked kissing Roxas or anything if what they did could even be described as a kiss, "Good…" her face turned pale again, Riku handed her the little cardboard hat thing the nurse had gave them for moments like this. He never knew that Naminé _could _be sick, he'd never seen her be it before. She'd always been perfect Naminé. In her little white dress. But it wasn't white anymore. It was a horrible sick colour, so she'd taken it off and borrowed one from the nurse, Riku didn't seem too happy about this though because her new dress went down to her knees, not her thighs.

"Sorry Nams…" Axel bent his head down, he didn't know she was homophobic. Well, she hadn't been until now, "I really am…" Naminé tried to smiled, she hadn't been sick yet, but it was very likely she would be, her face was turning multiple colours.

"S'OK," she said weakly before puking into the bowl. Riku and Axel winced as she did so. This was not her day.

"Erm … Axel, I'm really sorry, but I think that … well, I think because of Naminé … and all … well … I sort of thing that…" Riku began, he didn't want to say it, but it seemed that Naminé was not going to be getting over this quickly.

"Yeah, I know, I'll go. Have fun…" he told the two and walked off calmly into the forest next to the school, he didn't feel anger or sadness; he didn't feel anything really. But even if he didn't, he kicked a tree and sat down to cry.

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: Wh00t! Aw … poor Axie … I hope you've realised that Sora's not actually homophobic, it's just he's 15 and acts like he's 5, so he doesn't really get it. But Naminé does, so I guess she really is like MAJORLY homophobic! Yay! Now I know what Kairi said! Ooops ... tis my fault that it hasn't been updated – my internet twas not working! _LE GASPE But it's all fixed now – I'm putting two up because I owe you TWO!

_S/N: Yay . I love it that Kairi and Riku OBVIOUSLY love each other SO MUCH XD. Enough to beat the crap out of each other. And Leon Amusing to Yuffie and peace-maker. I guess Miss Gainsborough isn't a very good teacher if she lets fist fights happens and boys kissing and seems to ENCOURAGE it… Oh well… Yay I got to write the part about Kairi and Riku killing each other and the AkuRoku part . So, uh, kill FREYA if it's crap._


	4. Drunk on sugar Oh dear

-Chapter 3-

-Drunk on Sugar-

"I know you're still not OK Roxas," the girl had developed a soft streak for the boy. Everything was crapped up for him, and she couldn't do anything about that … unless she kissed him … but that would just be wrong and he probably wouldn't even like it anyway. He started to shake his head, but she wrapped her arms round him comfortingly, "I'm sorry…" she was sorry for him, she never knew that Roxas was so lovable, but not as much as Sora.

"What for?" the boy asked her as she let go of him, "I mean, why are _you _sorry?"

"Because you keep falling and landing on your ass, not my fault but I am sorry," she told him, the school had been spreading rumours that Axel and Roxas were going out and had kissed purposely, not for drama. She had a sneaking feeling that it was Yuffie who'd started this rumour. Yuffie was going to burn in hell after Kairi was done with her.

"Thanks…" Roxas told her, he picked up a marshmallow and squished it onto his stick, the campfire flickering and radiating heat, he propped it onto the ground and watched it burn. Kairi wondered where Sora had got to.

"HEY GUYS!" the said boy called, "I BROUGHT FOOOOOOOOD!" He dropped the paper bags out of his hands onto the muddy floor, he picked one up and opened it, it contained a great many number of sweets and chocolate and anything else Sora could afford. Kairi clambered over and grabbed a bag; she took a handful of the gooey stuff inside and stuffed her face with it. Roxas just sat, staring into the orange fire sadly. The darkening sky loomed over the three and Sora got changed in the tent, then Kairi, then Roxas. So it was just the three of them, the sky was completely black now, but the firelight kept the fear at bay. They sat and told jokes, Sora tried to beat the world record of how many mallows can you get in your mouth. And he ended up being almost sick on the campfire. He still put more in his mouth, just a little bit more carefully.

∞∙∞∙∞

Sitting alone for yourself in a dark wood where weird animals kept flitting past making weird noises wasn't Axel's idea of perfection for spending a Thursday night. He should have been out with Riku and Naminé, but then he remembered he couldn't be with them because of the annoying blonde thing being such a baby. And he didn't even LIKE Roxas. Well… He kept telling himself that, anyway, and he didn't see why he should change his opinion on the matter any time soon.

This really wasn't comfy, he had a suspicion he'd fallen asleep at some point because it was very, very dark now and hard to see a foot in front of his face. And his bum was going numb.

He groaned, and got up, stretching his legs, finding it a bit hard to walk because he'd been sat by the same damn tree for about three hours. His parents wouldn't be worried, because there wasn't really anything to do on Destiny Islands and certainly no drug dealers, and he went out all the time without telling them and they always came to the conclusion he was with his friends. Well, he normally was, but now he couldn't…

Mumbling in an annoyed way he moved around the woods, deciding it would be good to find the way out.

**CRACK!**

"OWWW! BASTARD!" roared Axel as he found out a little too late that woods tend to contain many, many trees and one of these annoying inanimate objects was barring his path. And then … "SHIT!" as he promptly walked into another one. And who could forget his lovely little exclamation of: "FFUCCCKKKKKKKKK!" The animals in the forest were delighted at this show of merriness as they all decided to hide from the crazy boy who liked to talk to trees like one of those tree-huggers. Yet again he ended up awkwardly 'hugging' another tree. One curse wasn't GOOD enough for this occasion. No, he had to get greedy. "BASTARDSHITFUCK!"

Eyes snapped open and a little boy shivered in his red little sleeping bag that made him look like a caterpillar, making it just as hard to move as he wriggled out of his tent without waking up Roxas and Kairi who could be very pissed off and prone to throwing objects and blood-thirsty moogles when their beauty sleep was disturbed. Well, they'd thank him later when he caught the criminal in the reptile costume just like in Scooby Doo and and pulled of his face declaring "IT'S A MASK! TAKE HIM AWAY, BOYS!" Of course, a major flaw in his plan was that the police weren't there, but WHO CARED?

He hopped around the clearing, going over right over the camp fire, and it was a good thing it had been put out or he would have resembled a hot dog curled up between the sleeping bag. He managed (somehow, because he was very un-coordinated and it had been an evil villain he would have been caught and murdered right now) to manoeuvre his way between the trees, to trip up gracefully over a tree root.

He fell, spiralling his way down to earth like a ballerina, if they decided puffy sleeping bags were the new black, of course, but luckily two soft things broke his fall. One soft thing was his sleeping suit, the other a person's nose, which instantly started bleeding. Of course, this didn't bother Sora because it wasn't his nose. Or his sleeping bag, actually – it was Kairi's. She brought two.

"OWWWWW! TREES AREN'T MEANT TO JUMP ON YOU!" wailed the heap under Sora. "AND MY NOSE FUCKING HURTS! Owwwwwwwww!"

"LE GASP!" cried Sora, not feeling afraid because he felt brave at that point. He was some sort of hero in a baggy jumpsuit with a giant front door key who sliced up monsters called Axel to save Kairi and … Riku … No, he didn't want to save Riku, he needed to get his memory back on that point, maybe from Naminé. "You lizard man! Sworn enemy of mine! Where did you hide the rubies and diamonds?"

"Wha'?" asked Axel groggily, pinching his nose and stemming the flow of blood as the creature jumped of him.

"YOUR FACE IS PLASTIC! YOUR FACE IS A MASK!" cried Sora, pointing an accusatory finger at Axel. "Now, I've just got to take it off and call the police and you'll be arrested, my fine friend, and…"

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! IT'S ME, **AXEL**!" yelled the teenager, getting shakily to his feet. Ha, Sora was no longer the taller of the two of them, now Axel towered over him with his crimson spiky hair and crimson blood running down to his lip. He looked like a vampire, with pale pasty skin as the moonlight washed down over him.

"Argh! Vampire! Boogie Man!" screamed Sora, pondering the gains of banging his head against a tree. He was never normally this hyper, but he guessed falling over, hitting his head and having one too many marshmallows with Kairi and Roxas had tipped him over the edge of insanity. One second he was in Scooby Doo, next in some sort of Disney and Squaresoft collaboration game, then he was a scared little boy.

"No, it's me, Axel… A-X-E-L… Got it memorised? Everybody else has…" he moaned. "And not for the right reasons…"

Sora's face brightened up. "Oh yeah… I remember you! YOU MADE ME SICK HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!" he giggled, swaying like he was laughing gas or something. Well, maybe he was, and maybe that was the reason why he promptly passed out, smacking his head on the ground and damaging it even more than it already was.

Axel stared at the limp body of Sora on the floor, and could only think of one thing to say that was relevant to the situation: "Damn…"

∞∙∞∙∞

The sight of the limp figure being held by this tall stranger was one that appealed to Kairi. She stared as the boy brought him through the trees, the sky a black colour – the night didn't seem like it was going to end, they'd been looking for Sora for ages after Roxas woke up to go to the toilet (even though there wasn't one) and found Sora missing. "Er … Sora sort of…"

"OH MY GOD! YOU KILLED SORA!" Kairi panicked, Axel just stared at her as though she was some sort of crazy person, "ROXAS! AXEL KILLED SORA! HE KILLED … Sora…" her voice lowered into a tiny little whimper, as her eyes started filling up with tears.

"No, no, no…"

"OH MY GOD! YOU KILLED HIM! I KNOW HE'S ANNOYING SOMETIMES BUT … SERIOUSLY!" Roxas nearly fainted, what was Axel doing in the woods anyway, looking like some sort of vampire that fed through its nose, "What are you doing here?" he said forgetting that his best friend might be dead, "Are you stalking me?" Roxas too, was high on sugar. For some reason he felt slightly jealous even though Sora was knocked out (possibly dead) and bleeding from his lips, nose, forehead and maybe even ears, but that could have just been from underneath his hair. He still got to be held by Axel.

"NONONONONONONONONONONO! Sora's not dead!" Kairi looked up as the tears trickled down her face, she was high on sugar. Sugar made bad things happen… "He just passed out…"

And as if on cue Sora replied with, "Kairi, I love you…" Kairi smiled as Axel made a 'I feel like I'm being sick' sound. Kairi scowled at him, so he laid Sora gently on the floor, as she laid next to him and smiled a really strange smile. Axel could tell she was high on sugar. She fell asleep after a few seconds. Roxas sighed and sat down next to them. _This is great_, he thought, _Now we have to get them into the tent before they wake up or Kairi'll kill me, oh yeah, and Axel's here and I haven't spoken to him since the … incident._

Roxas hiccoughed, he may have been thinking these things but the sugar had claimed ownership over his body so he couldn't do anything but dumb stuff. He also realised at that moment for some reason, Sora got what 'love' was in his _DREAMS_. No where else of course, he decided he'd tell Aerith this.

"Er … so … this is … fucking … awkward…" Axel started, Roxas looked up at him and sighed, his head dropped down, he almost fell asleep, but he didn't, "Er … sorry … about … that stupid … thing…" Axel assured him. Roxas' head dropped forward again, but he still didn't fall asleep. Maybe if he stood up, he'd feel less sleepy. As soon he got up, he couldn't help thinking _Bad idea_ as he dropped down, half of him on top of Kairi and Sora, his other half landing clumsily onto the hard floor, he could hear his head crack open, feel the sticky blood trickle down his face and hear Axel swear … a lot. But then it went black.

∞∙∞∙∞

The night before may have been awkward but now, it was the most awkward. Because they were all waking up and they were all sugar-sober.

"What the hell?" asked Kairi, her eyes half closed and her eyes sticky from crying. Roxas was next to her, a great big bandage made out of someone's clothes was wrapped around his head, he started to unpeel it, but he soon regretted it, the blood poured out, he stuck the cloth back onto his head and let out a sigh of relief. He'd only got his sleeping bag bloody, not Kairi's. Sora stirred next to them both, mumbling something about 'loving Kairi'. Kairi smiled lovingly at him and Roxas tried to remember what had happened but instead he fell over. Well, he was in a tent with Kairi and Sora. That was good. His head had been cracked open and was bleeding. That was bad. He couldn't remember anything else. He sat up and as he thought his head hurt more and more, so he decided to stop thinking and do a 'Sora'. Let things take place around him.

"Erm … hello?" Axel was at the door of the tent, that was … bad. Or maybe it was good, he didn't know. His head fell back onto the pillow beneath it. It really was hurting now. Kairi stepped back from Sora who wasn't quite awake yet.

"Er … hello…" she said cautiously, "Er … why did you help us?" she asked him. Roxas giggled to himself, he must be dreaming, Axel wouldn't help them, Axel hated them. Images started to fly up in his mind of Axel. Axel was in his school. Axel was in his class. Axel was in his drama class. Axel was his drama partner. Axel kissed him.

"Crap…" muttered Roxas, as he caught a few odd glances from Axel and Kairi, Sora still wasn't quite awake.

"Well … because I brought Sora back and then you fell asleep next to him, and then Roxas cracked his head open when he fell asleep, and I'm not the sort of person to just let people bleed to death," he told them plainly. Kairi pulled a face at Roxas, Roxas laid on his pillow his eyes staring at the ceiling of the tent, Sora suddenly sat up.

"KAIRIWHEREAREYOU?" he shouted worriedly, Kairi jumped, but after a short pause she laid him back on the pillow and tried to soothe him back to sleep.

"Why do you want him asleep?" asked Roxas dreamily, the lights were making pretty colours on the tent.

"Because that way, he … he … I don't really know … I think he was still asleep when he said that … you're not meant to wake people up or they go crazy…" Kairi explained, the other two started to laugh when Kairi told them that they could go crazy if you woke them up.

"I really don't think it matters if you wake him up Kai," Roxas giggled. Kairi put her hands on her hips and scowled, turning her attention back to Sora. However much she tried, she couldn't help but love him. It was so obvious that it was funny when she denied it.

"Sorry … erm … I'll go now shall I? You probably have loads of things to do…" Axel started to leave the tent, but Roxas stopped him.

"No! Come on, you just like … saved us. You should stay, besides, I think I've got your T-shirt on my head," he told Axel, noticing the bottom of Axel's top, it had been ripped and was much more shorter than he remembered.

"Well … Naminé and Riku might…" he stopped remembering, " I mean … I really don't think … sorry…" he left the tent just before Sora actually woke up and threw up over Kairi.

"Shit…" she mumbled. She knew he was very prone to puking, but seriously that's like five times in two days. It wasn't fair, oh well; at least they weren't her best pyjamas.

"Kairi!" Sora burbled, "The monster took you away hee hee…" Kairi looked at Roxas and he looked at her.

"Erm ... What should we do…" Roxas shrugged. Kairi bit her lip.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Where's Axel?" Naminé asked Riku, her face paling slightly as she said his name, "You didn't tell him to go away did you? Because if you did…" her face kept on getting paler and paler. Riku looked at his shoes. Naminé's face crumpled, "Riku…" she whined.

"Well, Naminé you're sick everytime you see him … I had to…" Naminé nodded, she was feeling sick just thinking about him, she didn't feel like giving up on him, but this time she did. And it was all Sora's fault.

"Riku…" she said, he nodded and took her hand.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Where were you!" demanded the angry mother from hell, holding a rolling pin in one hand like she was ready to thwack any burglars with it if they dared sneak up on her. "You were gone all night! Where WERE you? And tell the truth this time, lad, or I'll hit you so hard…" she motioned to her rolling pin.

"Well, I was really depressed because our teacher told us that I had to kiss Roxas, you know that boy I really hate. And so I did, and the thing is, I didn't have to, but now, Naminé's a homophobe and she wishes she isn't because she keeps throwing up whenever she sees me. And then because of that, Riku says that I shouldn't hang around with them anymore. So I went into the woods and I think I must've fallen asleep because when I woke up it was dark. I kept hitting trees and Sora heard me. He was high on sugar so he passed out. I then had to find Kairi and Roxas to give him back. I eventually found them, but then Kairi fell asleep (not in the tent) and then Roxas fell asleep when he was standing up and he broke his head open. So I had to rip half of my shirt off to make a bandage for him. Then I carried them all back to their tent and put them in their sleeping bags. And I slept on a log outside so as I could make sure they were OK. Then I went in to check them in the morning when I woke up, and they were fine, Roxas' head hurt though and Sora wasn't properly awake, but I left them at that. Then I came here, and that pretty much sums it all up," his mother gawped at him open mouthed, then she shook her head fiercely and pointed at the stairs.

"Liar! Up them stairs NOW!" she screamed at him.

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: YAY! SORA'S CRAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZY! I like this chapter because it's … CRAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZY!_

_S/N: I hate my brother… I HATE HIM! Oh, am I typing this? Hehe… Well… I think this chapter is okay…_


	5. Return to the art of love

-Chapter 4-

-Return to the art of LOVE-

"OK, kids, you had your three day weekend, the sick DID take that long to clean up…" Sora and Naminé blushed. Naminé felt really sick in this room. She had been so worried about actually entering it that she'd already thrown up. She felt like throwing up now, but she hadn't anything to throw up so she was fine … for the time being.

"Miss, can I have a different partner?" asked Axel, making Roxas look a little put out. Yuffie wished she had a camera. Aerith thought for a moment, looking at Naminé, and deciding the best thing to do was kick Leon out of the school so Axel could have Yuffie … but if she kicked Leon out, there wouldn't be anyone to split up the fights that broke out frequently between Kairi and Riku, he was still trying to look up her skirt. Aerith wondered why she became a teacher at all.

"Well … no…" she told him, "There isn't really anyone who could be your partner … unless we had another boy pairing, so I think it's best we leave things how they are,"

"Miss, can I have a different partner?" asked Riku who had just been separated from Kairi yet again.

"No, and if you're wondering why, it's because … I hate you…" that's what she wanted to say, but she was too nice, "I'll pair you with Tidus if you want," Tidus' face went white and Selphie stuttered. Naminé threw up, "Ooops … OK kids, I think we'll take our lesson outside, Naminé do you want to go to the nurse … again?" Naminé nodded, how could she be sick if she hadn't eaten anything? Maybe this was what it was like to be pregnant.

"Sora, you OK?" Kairi whispered to the boy.

"Naminé's gone, and I don't have a partner now…" he muttered sadly. Kairi patted him on the back and smiled, Sora smiled back, sometimes it was scary when Sora smiled, but sometimes it was cute, like now.

"Hehe…" she giggled.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Oh, how much I love you, there is nothing more that makes me happier than you, you make the rain in the spring come, the sun in summer, the snow in winter. You are my one and only…" Roxas stopped, Axel was laughing at him, laughing at him! He blushed bright red and smiled.

"Roxas! What the hell was that?" he laughed, Roxas shrugged, blushing even more.

"Dunno, just reading it…" he told the boy in front of him.

"You're the most emotionally challenged kid I've ever met … apart from Sora…" the said boy chose that exact moment to ask Kairi loudly.

"Kairi? What does this word LOVE mean?" Kairi slapped her forehead and Sora's forehead. Axel and Roxas burst into peals of laughter. "HAHAHAHA! What's so funny?" asked Sora, only encouraging more laughs from the two boys.

"Yeah…" Roxas laughed. He picked up the script, "Do you want to be the girl or the boy?" Axel shrugged and picked up one of the pieces of paper in Roxas' hand, he pointed at some of the lines.

"This part sounds good, I bet that's the guy's part, I'll have that one…" Roxas laughed and laughed, Axel looked confused, "What? What's so funny?"

"Well, how many male people do you know called 'Sora'?" Axel looked at the sheet again, Axel pointed across the room to the little boy, who was definitely a boy the last time he asked, "Oh…" Roxas muttered, "Erm … it says here, that's the girl's part…"

Sora frowned, "WHY AM I A GIRL?" Kairi laughed, and Aerith smiled knowingly. "WHYYYYYYYYYY?" he whined, he'd been added to Kairi's pair so Riku was feeling left out and just sat on the grass, desperately wishing for Kairi to move to the right spot, so he could look up her skirt.

"Oh well, I guess I'll just do the girl's part then…" Axel muttered darkly.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Isn't this funfunfun!" asked Aerith in a little girl's voice, clapping her hands together brightly and making the bracelets jingle in a happy like symphony. "Right, who wants to show me what progress they've made on their little play? Why, of course Tidus and Selphie!" she exclaimed, shooting Tidus an annoyed glance because he dared not pay attention in her lesson. He was making paper aeroplanes with messages on them like 'maracas at the manger' and 'Wakka lives in Walla Walla' and other insulting things, and shooting them into the boy's demon hair.

"Who keep doing that, man?" asked Wakka, feeling his hair. The paper aeroplanes had done a helluva lotta damage and had made his hair bend over in some sort of orange nightmare. Lulu sat next to him sighed and shook her head, trying not to blind herself by looking at … him … It was like staring into the sunshine. If you stared too long, mesmerised by it's crap-ness, then it would kill your eyes.

"TIDUS! STOP SHOOTING WAKKA'S HAIR WITH AREOPLANES!" Kairi yelled. "IT'S DAMN ANNOYING AND NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHO SCARRED BABY JESUS FOR LIFE EXCEPT MAYBE JESUS HIMSELF AND WAKKA CAUSE HE'S GONNA BURN IN HELL!"

"Thank you, Kairi. My thoughts exactly," smiled Aerith. "Tidus, Selphie, get up and go and perform or some … crap…"

Their little performance might actually have been good if the real Sora hadn't spoilt it. Every time Tidus looked at Selphie – 'Sora' as the script called her – and stared into her eyes with passion and spoke her stage name, the boy would jump up from the audience crying: "HELLO TIIIDDUUUSSSSSS! SORA IS MY NAME! YOU APPEAR TO HAVE CALLED ME!"

This resulted in a lot of laughter, completely ruining the mood, as they skulked back to their seats in shame, Sora wondering why Tidus had kept yelling his name then asking him to sit back down again. It was cruel of him to mess around so much, really… And Selphie thought Sora was cruel, for ruining her romantic moment, because she liked all those 'papou' rumours and crap.

"Right, thank you for your helpful suggestions, Sora. Right, for the rest of this exercise your name will be … uh … Jiminy, okay?" asked Aerith, and 'Jiminy' nodded happily. Kairi shuddered. "And, now for being so rude, EVERYBODY who laughed will be going up to perform their piece," she said, in strict teacher mode, although she ruined it by grinning at Axel and Roxas who looked like they were going to be sick, or hit something… This was all just some plan so she could humiliate them further!

She didn't even care when Wakka fell off the stage because Lulu 'accidentally' pushed him, or when Riku sat on the floor lost in the sights under Kairi's skirt, or when Yuffie collapsed onto Leon in fits of helpless giggles or when Selphie decided to get her revenge on Sora for ruining her piece by shooting one of the 'maracas in the manger' aeroplanes at him. Nobody was even trying, and he was sure Yuna deliberately gave herself a coughing fit so they could speed up the performances to get to Axel and Roxas'. Because everybody was cruel and evil and wanted to laugh at them.

"This is pretty cool, huh, fellas?" asked So … Jiminy brightly, making Kairi wince, as she held her head to keep it from flying apart.

"Shut … up … Jiminy…" she hissed.

"But…?"

"SILENCE!" she cried, making 'Jiminy' cry, "Er … sorry…" she whispered. She gave him a hug, even though she was in murderous mood and she may have squeezed him a little too tightly, but hugs seemed to work on Sora or 'Jiminy' when he was upset, "OK?" she asked and he nodded.

"Right, OK, Axel and Roxas, would you like to come up to the stage?"

No. Roxas did not want to step on the stage, which was just a load of boxes loosely stacked together, not that high off the ground so it didn't hurt THAT much when Wakka fell off it. But, it wasn't like he had much of a choice, everybody was looking at them expectantly. Drama was quickly becoming his most-hated subject, because everybody was EVIL. PURE EVIL. Even Aerith, who only wore pink.

"Uh…" Roxas coughed, clearing his throat. He couldn't even act. "Uh… Okay…" he muttered, before launching into his script at double-speed, sounding a little bit like a hamster on helium. All a very bamboozled Axel could make out was an "Eeeeeeeeeeee!" that sounded a bit like a hamster mixed with a hamster WHEEL that needed oiling. Or maybe shooting. Shooting stuff solved everything. Apart from maybe peace rallies…

"Roxas. Slow … down…" said Aerith in her calm voice, as if talking to a lame kid with hives. "We … can't … understand … a … word … you're … saying."

Roxas grumbled. It was impossible to hear what WAKKA said because of his Jamaican accent, and the fact that he had to end every phrase with the word 'man'. And Yuna and her fake coughing fit, and then Riku just SAT THERE like a sack of potatoes gathering mould which was what he looked like most of the time anyway. And Naminé wasn't even ON the field with the crappy stage, she was getting meds and shock tablets. Baby.

"Okay… Oh, how much I love you, there is nothing more that makes me happier than you, you make the rain in the spring come, the sun in summer, the snow in winter. You are my one and only…" he said, his voice shaking like it was breaking. No – he sounded like a freak! A freak that CARED too much about what his drama grade was! Dear God, Selphie looked disappointed, she had one of those 'Wakka lives in Walla Walla' aeroplanes ready, she was going to fire it at him…

"Er…" Axel began, then he muttered, "Why the fuck did you put so much emotion in that?" Selphie lowered her aeroplane. There was swearing, that was good.

"I dunno, I guess it might be because we're in DRAMA CLASS!" Roxas pointed out the obvious, Yuffie was screaming her head off, she loved this.

"You're a right RETARD, you know that! Now Yuffie's gonna go round school MORE! And it's your fault!" By now, it seemed like Yuffie was having a fit, and Leon was having to try and calm her down. He was failing miserably of course.

"ARGH! RIKU STOP LOOKING!" screamed Kairi, yet again, Riku was peering under the poor girl's skirt. She stood up in frustration and stormed off. 'Jiminy' following her happily, waving at people as he walked past them.

"I hate you so much..." Axel told the blonde haired boy on the cardboard boxes. He looked taken aback. He hadn't been expecting that, he'd just done what he'd been asked to do. Roxas jumped off the 'stage' and stalked off.

"Crap..." muttered Aerith, "This is not good ... Roxas, come back, come on ... Crap..." the class cheered as Roxas started to sprint out of the gates, heading for the beach.

"Roxas!" cried Kairi who chased after him, closely followed by 'Jiminy' who was totally oblivious to what was going on around him.

"Are we chasing moogles?" he asked Kairi happily, she just kept on running after Roxas. Eventually they made it to the beach and found Roxas sitting on a rock, crying. Kairi looked up at the poor boy and clambered up the rocks to get to him. She got a few cuts and bruises but she didn't care. Roxas was crying. She was in the most murderous mood but that was because someone had hurt Roxas. Her little Roxas had been hurt. Once she'd climbed to the top of the thing he was sitting on she crawled over to him.

He was still crying, even more now. He didn't know why, he just knew that he was. Kairi was sitting next to him with both arms wrapped round his neck, she wasn't hugging him too tight. She was in a murderous mood yet she wasn't being violent or murderous. She leant her head against his shoulder. Eventually, 'Jiminy' managed to clamber up too. He realised how serious this moment was so he shut up and sat next to Kairi, he closed his eyes and breathed in the salty air, it stung his lungs and his nose and his dry lips. But it was a feeling he was used to. It was a feeling like home.

"Kairi..." Roxas whispered, "Sora, why did you come?" he asked them, he knew as well as they did that they could get in a whole load of trouble for skipping school.

"Because we're your friends..." Kairi told him, although 'Jiminy' looked outraged.

"I'm not SORA, I'm Jiminy!" Kairi smacked him and Roxas tried to smile, it didn't really work though, he ended up looking just as sad. Kairi was sad too, all the years she'd known Roxas, she'd only just started to actually like him as a proper friend, not just a person she knew.

"YOU'RE SORA YOU DUMBASS!" screamed Kairi, Sora whimpered and started to cry again. So Kairi, the miracle-worker that she was hugged Sora too and 'HEY PRESTO' he was fine again. "Aw, sorry Sora, I'm just ... just really pissed off right now, yeah, you OK?" she looked at him as though he were some really small kid who needed looking after. Sora nodded and sniffed a bit. Then they went back to just staring into the horizen.

"Kairi, I can see up your SKIRT!" a teasing voice called up to the girl, she looked down and saw Riku standing there, gawping. She screamed and jumped down, holding onto her skirt as she did so it wouldn't flip up and reveal more to the perverted boy.

"ARGH! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU _FREAK_!" she screeched, she slapped him across the face a couple of times, and then a couple more. She was so glad Leon wasn't there. She started to punch him in the stomach, it felt good, she did it some more and more. This was the part of her murderous mood she really liked. Her fists were flying all over the place. Not just because he was a perv, but also because his friend hurt her friend. Soon he was on the floor, blood was trickling out of every inch of his face, she didn't care, her shoes soon got covered in his blood.

"Kairi! Stop it! Kairi, he's really hurt, Kairi!" she could hear the voices but she wasn't going to listen to them.

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: OMG! Riku is like ... almost DEAD! By the way, if you were wondering about the Maracas in the Manger thing, skitts, purply-natalia and I go to a choir, and we sing a song called Maracas in the Manger. And skitts kept having these weird visions of Wakka jumping up behind the manger Jesus slept in, with a big Mexican hat on and maracas, singing, "MARACAS IN THE MANGER – I'LL BE BACK!" Scary huh?_

_S/N:I like ... llamas!_

_Kairi: Aw damn... I ruined my shoes..._

_Added info: SORRY MY GOOD FOLLOWERS!! I WAS BEING ... STUPID ... AND LAZY ... AND FORGETFUL BECAUSE I DIDN'T PUT THE CHAPTER UP FOR AGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES ;-; -hugs- FORGIVE MEEEEE!!_


	6. They've coloured the sand

-Chapter 5-

-They've coloured the sand!-

"That was like so totally cute. Until Roxas flipped out and ran off the stage after that lovers' argument," said Yuffie in a conversational voice to the assembled girls on her lunch table, voice loud and bright and airy so EVERYBODY could hear her. Yuna and Rikku sniggered a little as a response, and clutched their hearts in mock 'it's-breaking' fashion.

For some reason, Axel didn't even care. He didn't CARE that he had ended up sitting on the 'geek' table, without Riku or Naminé by his side because Riku had followed Kairi so he could gawp up her skirt more (much to Aerith's distaste) and Naminé had been sent home by the nurse. Apparently her severe homophobia had been coupled with a horrible flu germ that was going around – Axel sniggered, wondering if the flu germ and homophobia were both male – making her feel even more like shit. So it wasn't as bad as he'd thought her case had been, but still…

He didn't CARE that the whole of the canteen were chatting and giggling about him (the girls) and grunting and guffawing about him (the boys). He didn't CARE that Yuffie was shouting out the events of that day, he didn't CARE that Selphie had made more paper projectiles with 'Roxas loves Axel' on them, he didn't CARE that the canteen food tasted like crap, mostly because he wasn't eating it.

He wasn't eating it because he DID care about Roxas, and where he had run off to, and if he was alright. Well, he figured he would be – that Kairi girl had followed him, and was probably smothering him in love and hugs and beating away anybody who dared hurt him with a bear-trap, as if he were made of china and would break. Well, Axel guessed he had pretty much dropped him and shattered him after his words. 

Bitter feelings washed around his confuzzled mind about why he cared if Kairi was hugging Roxas or not. He was trying hard to be apathetic about EVERYTHING. He wasn't meant to care. 

"Heyyyy, Axel!" said a hyper voice, and he scowled into his plate of congealing ham sandwich, as Rikku skippety-skipped over to him, flanked by Selphie. It was common knowledge the two major girl groups (Selphie, Olette, Riona, and Yuffie, Rikku, Yuna) didn't get on with each other. But now they were bonding together in attempts to weedle out information about his supposed boyfriend. And Axel was sure hell would have frozen over before Selphie and Rikku skippety-skipped through the canteen together. Apparently not… "Why are you alone? Has your crush run off now?"

"Love doesn't work that way… You don't say stuff like that to your boyfriend," grinned Rikku, all blonde hair, a bit like Roxas, cute expression, a bit like Roxas, totally hot, a bit like … Not like Roxas. Urgh. He was MAD at the boy for being so STUPID and starting up these rumours and thoughts in Axel's head in the FIRST PLACE. He could set Rikku on fire, he wanted so much to slather her face with flammable face-cream and get out his lighter.

"Yeah… Axey, you gotta be GOOD! We can help you," smiled Selphie, motioning towards the two of them, obviously implying that Olette, Rinoa, Yuffie and Yuna would lend a hand too. They were all crazy about romance, like romance… crazed… people. Or something. "We can help you make your relationship totally happy and crap." 

"Then I suggest you go and find Riku and Kairi and stop them from punching each other," growled Axel, picking up his tray of un-touched food and making his way through the groups of girls who had followed their mistresses, as they cut apart like the red sea. Without an Axel to annoy, they were split back into their clans, as they sasheyed off to find more poor boys and girls to torment.

"Oh, and Axel? If Roxas has ran off in a state of heart-break and fallen into the sea, would you not feel partly responsible for his death?" asked Yuffie brightly, shooting a quick glance at him over her shoulder.

"No … I … Y- … Fuck off."

And the girls, much to Axel's pleasure, did just that, for once. They fucked off.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Kairi, what the hell have you done?" Kairi was breathing heavily, she felt good, and bad at the same time, "Kairi..." she kicked the limp body lying on the ground softly. The red sand beneath him squelched.

"I ... I don't ... I don't know..." she told the herself, Roxas didn't know what to do, everything was happening, it was like that Mickey Mouse Christmas Special, when Mickey had got all those presents and all that merriment and happy stuff had happened to him. This time it was bad stuff that had happened.

"Ungghhh..." the thing squirmed on the ground, making Kairi wince and jump back a little.

"Riku ... Riku ... er ... Riku?" she didn't know what to do, but by this time she noticed Roxas' eyes were welling up again. She had to make amends, for Roxas. Sora however was sitting on the sand and playing with the sand.

"Hey Kairi! Look, they've coloured the sand!" he was shouting playfully as he scooped up some of the bloody sand and threw it at a passing seagull, "Hehe, it died!" he shouted as the bird swooped down as a large clump of rocky sand caught it neatly in the head.

"Erm ... Riku?" Riku groaned again, scaring Sora, he jumped up and started to shriek about some sort of demon resting inside the near dead boy, "Er ... Sora, it's OK, erm ... Riku..." Sora screamed yet again as Riku turned over, he ran away to another part of the beach. Kairi couldn't do anything else, so she just sighed and ran after him calling for Roxas to follow.

They reached a place where Sora could calm down. "Kairi, what are we going to do about Riku?" asked Roxas hesitantly, "We can't just leave him there, what if he..." Kairi shook her head fiercely.

"We can't go back now, you can, but I'm not," she told him firmly. She sat down as if to prove her point. Roxas sighed and sat down next to her as Sora played the little kid and started trying to make sandcastles with his hands.

∞∙∞∙∞

And so we take this number and multiply it by – Axel, are you even listening to me?" inquired their Maths teacher. She was used to all eyes in the class being focused on her and found it rather disconcerting that a dreamy look was on the red-head's face, as he seemed transfixed by the thoughts in his head. All the boys looked at her because she was young, pretty teacher, about twenty-three, with blonde hair and figure like a model. The girls all looked at her because they were all wondering what shampoo she used and what food she ate to retain that figure.

"What?" he asked, her voice jerking him back into reality. The reality of the maths book spread before him and white board displaying some sort of maths equation, seeming to be random numbers and signs jumbled together in some sort of incoherent mess. "I … er … sorry, Miss."

"Right," said Larxene smoothly, turning her back on the class to work on her formulas that cluttered up the board. Tidus sniggered as he leant his head slightly, getting a fabulous view of her ass. "So, we take that number there and multiply it by this one, and the answer should be…"

Hands shot up into the air, but Larxene's blue eyes moved over Yuna (a very studious girl despite her obsession with herbal shampoo and conditioner), Leon (smart, smart guy), Cloud (who had probably copied the answer of Leon) and Selphie (well, she had to be good at some subject, as she failed royally at English.) Larxene was an evil sadist teacher, and she could tell, despite his assurances, that Axel was dozing off again, stepping into some daydream with his mouth open slightly and a sort of 'cracky' look that washed over his features. "Axel, what's the answer?"

"… Oh … Miss … You were asking me!" he asked, eyes snapping open in a wide look, like one of those toy dolls little girls had, where they were shook hard enough and they blinked realistically. Or their eyeballs dropped out, depending on how expensive they were.

"Yes, I was asking you," smiled Larxene in her frosty way, as she paced around in an evil scientist manner, swinging her hips in that sophisticated way. Tidus wasn't the only boy staring, and Rikku looked jealous of all the attention she was attracting. She couldn't stand out in Maths class, no matter how many beads she strung in her hair or how long-down she slung her pants. "Chop, chop, Axel, time is of the essence."

"Sixty-two?" he asked, saying the fist number that popped into his head. 

Larxene's mouth opened slightly, but she snapped it up shut again. "Correct… Gah, if you're so good at these formulas why I don't give you some extra homework to brush up on your super skills – TIDUS, PAY ATTENTION!" she cried angrily, turning her death-glare on the small boy, who shrunk away slightly, tilting his head in the perfect 'I'm scared' style, but really he was trying to look down the front of her shirt. She seemed oblivious, however.

"Right, right, let's continue, then. So, we have sixty-two, and we take that and divide it by… Yuna?" she broke off, the brunette's hand waving around frantically in the air. She was determined to get a good mark in all her lessons and get a GOOD job, she didn't want to end up flipping burgers for a living.

And so the lesson went on in this style, Axel slumping yet again into his deep thoughts, attempting to carefully disguise his musings with an interested look on his face. However, he let his guard down, and Larxene pounced on this, now with a ruler in her hand, as she smacked it on Tidus' desk for emphasis.

"AXEL! Where the hell are you this lesson! RIGHT, if you think you're so smart you obviously DON'T NEED TO PAY ATTENTION tell me what the answer to this is, then!" she exclaimed in angry she-devil tones, slamming the ruler against a certain equation scrawled on the white-board with enough force to make it shake as if in an earthquake. She needed to work on those anger issues… 

Her words barely registered in Axel's mind, he mumbled the first word he could draw up from his vocabulary that wasn't a swear-word, and settled on: "Roxas…"

"…" Larxene looked at him, before laughing coldly, the rest of the class joining in. A mirth-filled Yuffie pointed at him, and began the old chant started up in drama, declaring it to be TRUE. "Ah, so that's what's wrong… You're thinking of a certain somebody… Ahh, how cute," she grinned in an evil clown way, slamming the ruler back against Tidus' desk to indicate she was taunting Axel and everybody else should shut up and not spoil her moment. This was the reason why she became a teacher… To strike terror in the hearts of stupid little girls and boys.

"Hmn… Axel, please keep your mind off your boyfriend in my lessons, please. And Tidus, stop looking at my ass," she growled, the boy looking casually away. He didn't seem surprised she had noticed … It was a little pantomime routine that usually took place every half an hour. "Right, Axel, I'm afraid we don't let people visualise about such things in MY lessons. You, detention. Tidus, you don't quit doing that and I'll poke your eyes out and feed them to the class fish. Alright then, back to the joys of Algebra!"

"Ung…" mumbled Axel, letting his head fall to his desk in embarrassment

**-x-x-x-**

_L/N: Awww, poor Axel, me no likey Yuffie..._

_S/N:Random crap..._


	7. I kissed my best friend

-Chapter 6-

-I kissed my best friend-

Roxas kicked the wall again, it was drama again. Everyday, drama, english/maths, art, drama. The school day only lasted about four hours. Five if you counted lunch.

"Right, today we're going to be doing ... er ... shall we say ... really romantic stuff..." she looked worriedly at Roxas, then at Naminé, Axel wasn't there for some reason, "So, since neither Riku nor Axel are here for some obscure reason that I've forgotten..." she glared at Kairi who blushed slightly, it was a day later and Riku's body had been found that morning by some of the fish-gutting kids who'd gone out for a few hours of fishing. You had to admit it, if it weren't for those people, Destiny Islands wouldn't be so smelly... oh, and they wouldn't have any food... "So, instead, Roxas, you can be paired up with Kairi, and when or _if_ Axel gets here, he'll have to stay and watch," she finished smartly.

Roxas sidled up to Kairi, feeling a little bit more comfortable having someone a different gender for his 'romantic' partner. Although, he was a bit worried about the 'really romantic' thing their 'caring' teacher had told the class about.

"Yay! Roxas, at least you won't look up my skirt!" Roxas smiled as Kairi jumped about playfully, she was still upset that Naminé had Sora but Roxas was obviously the next best thing.

"I wouldn't dare after what you did," Roxas joked, Kairi obviously didn't like this joke, "Sorry, c'mon then," he walked over to where Miss had told them to walk over to.

"Right, here are your scripts everybody," she handed round the scripts, "If you don't want to do it ... TOUGH! You're doing it, you're old enough, now get on with it..." she motioned her arms so they might magically spin round and instantly impress her with their amazing talents and an Oscar award winner might hear them from just round the corner, and Aerith would get an Oscar for showing them just how to be great, and oh... oh the joy... As Aerith stood, starry eyed, her arms wide open to the world, for reasons unkown to them, most just sat on the ground and scratched their heads.

Naminé scanned the script and gulped," Er ... miss..." she began, Aerith turned round, a cross look on her face. Then she saw Sora and it was almost as though her face melted.

"Well, you can teach him, oh and by the way class, you DON'T have to use tongues," the class breathed a sigh of relief (especially Lulu) and carried on with their reading.

"Er ... this is weird..." Roxas started as he moved his head round to see all the couples declare their undying love for each other. They all fitted together, Yuffie and Leon, Selphie and Tidus, Olette and Hayner, Rinoa and Cloud, Pence and Tifa, Rikku and Demyx, and a few others. But then you went to the enemies, Kairi and Riku didn't work, Naminé and Sora didn't work. Roxas couldn't quite bring himself to say that Roxas and Axel didn't work. But he knew that Kairi and Roxas didn't work.

"Okay, just say your line," she giggled, she was obviously _very _happy that Riku was not her partner, "Oh, right, I start ... Er, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here, just ... just forget me ... I'm nothing..." Roxas was taken aback with the skill of the girl, he knew she was good at acting, he just didn't know how good. Kairi, waved her hand as if to tell him to say something.

"Oh right, erm ... I can't just for ... get about you ... you saved me, you should er, stay here?" Roxas' ability to not read very well had let him down again. Kairi laughed and helped him as they went through about half the script.

"Right kids!" Aerith cried out happily, clasping her hands like a proper teacher, "Let's read them out then shall we, hmmm, who should we have..." she scanned the room as always, she knew which two she was going to pick. It was so fun to torment the boy, "Let's see, ah yes! Roxas and Kairi," Roxas looked at the script and realised that he was going to have to kiss Kairi.

"Erm, miss, we didn't finish reading all the way through it ... can we not do it?" Aerith shook her head firmly and Kairi and Roxas lumbered up to the proper stage right where everyone could see them. Yuffie stifled a giggle.

"Miss, Roxas can't though, he belongs to Axel," the class burst into peals of laughter, Roxas shielded his face from the giggles as though that would stop it from glowing with embarrassment, it didn't though.

The two teens reached the stage and got out their crumpled pieces of paper they were supposed to read from, they started to do so.

The class listened, enraptured, the laughter had long since died down. They were so engulfed in the story being laid out before them, Kairi had done Roxas some good, by teaching him how to read out lines properly. "Don't go..." he called after the girl as she walked away, as it told her to in the little paper she held in her hand, she turned round, her eyes full of crocodile tears.

"I have to..." she told the boy softly, Roxas gulped, this was it, it was just a little peck on the lips wasn't it?

He rushed over to her, pulling her back, "You don't..." he moved his face towards hers. It was just for drama, exactly the same as that whole kissing Axel thing. It didn't MEAN anything.

He brushed his lips softly against hers, and she gave a muffled squeak of surprise as he invaded her personal privacy with his mouth. Well, he had done his 'assingment', so he could just back away now, right, he wondered, trying to pull away, but not exactly sure how to break the kiss.

Instead of breaking the kiss, he ended up somehow deepening it more, his tongue sliding past her parted lips to tease around the inside of her mouth. Alright, this was DEFINATLY more than required. Maybe he'd get an A plus instead of an A in drama now he thought bitterly, feeling so … In control … He remembered his kiss with Axel, where he hadn't really been able to do anything to stop him.

And … why was he thinking about AXEL at a time like this? Unfortunately, it seemed that thinking about Axel could just make him appear at the worst possible moments.

"SorryI'mlatemissbutitwasSora'smoogleagainitjustlikepoppedoutofno ... oh..." Axel dropped his bags and flopped onto the floor.

Roxas couldn't do about that though, he was kissing Kairi, he was kissing Kairi, his best friend. Should it feel right? It didn't. He closed his eyes, he didn't want to look at anything anymore. Kairi felt limp as he wrapped his arms round her, it really did not feel right at all anymore. But he couldn't stop now, even with his eyes closed he was aware of the stares he was getting, he was aware that Yuffie was now making up some new rumour about him. He was just so ... so ... so disorientated.

"Erm..." Aerith started, stopping immediately as Kairi put her arms round Roxas, it was actually quite funny for Yuffie, watching this. She had started to laugh, but Leon being the sensible and responsible person he was stuffed his fist in her mouth so she couldn't really do anything. Axel was still just sitting on the floor, just staring.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Axel, why aren't you eating?" inquired Naminé, who was back at her rightful place on his table. Not that the red-head thought he owned Naminé, or anything… At least that weird Roxas/Kairi kiss had managed to create a good result – and about three thousand bad ones, most of them revolving a weird pang in his chest that he didn't think was hunger, as he couldn't bring himself to put any food past his lips. Naminé, over her bout of flu and ready to go, was now convinced he couldn't possibly have any chances of going out with Roxas whether he was straight or not, because he was going out with Kairi now, if the rumours Yuffie was spreading was anything to go by.

"Feel sick…" he replied, and in a way he did feel a little sick. He poked the food on his plate with his shiny, shiny fork, observing a little like a magpie. He had felt sick when Roxas stunk his tongue down Kairi's throat in a heat of dramatic passion, he had felt sick when Naminé giggled light-heartedly after drama and linked her arm with his because she was becoming so shallow, he felt sick when Kairi and Roxas went off together, he felt sick, sick, sick. That weird contracting feeling of his heart was making him feel worse, mingled with the unappetising scent of the canteen food.

"Oh no… Maybe you've got my cold," said the blonde-girl in a worried voice, moving forward to press a hand to his fore-head. "Hmn…" she observed, like a mother, and this made Axel feel even more sick because even though Naminé didn't approve of him and Roxas – not that there WAS anything going on anymore thanks to Kairi – she was genuinely nice person. She was trying so hard to make up for the whole 'blanking him' ordeal, and he didn't want to hate her because of a minor little bug in her DNA face-cream that made her gag reflex kick in every time she saw two boys hold hands. It WASN'T her fault and she was trying to hard to show Axel she didn't care, that was still his friend.

"Nmn… Just tired, I guess." And a little bit depressed, bruised feelings, hurt. Purply-blue-black bruises all over his pale skin from hurt, metaphorical but definitely there, just unseen to the eye. Axel could feel it.

"You gotta eat to live, Axel," stated Naminé in a matter-of-fact voice, biting into the flesh of the green apple in her hand. She cared about him so much… It hurt more than those bruises. How much would she care if she knew how he really felt? "Anyways, I'm guessing you must be p-r-e-t-t-y pissed at Kairi right about now."

Axel's eyes widened. Did Naminé know… Did she know that he was feeling like this for ROXAS? Did she know the bruises were there because of Kairi hugging him and damn kissing him?! "Well, yeah, I guess…"

"I mean, HOW DARE SHE do that to Riku?! SHE'S SUCH A BITCHBITCHbitchbitchBITCHBITCHBITCH!" she stormed in an angry tirade, and Axel shrunk back from the wrath printed on her delicate, cutesy little features that didn't look so cutesy now.

Naminé didn't SWEAR, Naminé didn't express that much hate. Maybe she was just as bruised as Axel was, but over Riku, torn up just as much as he was after his encounter with Kairi's fists. At least she didn't know about exactly why Axel was pissed at Kairi. Although he did care about Riku. "HOW COULD SHE JUST GET AWAY WITH THAT? I swear, if I see her…" she took another ferocious bite of her apple to prove her point, tearing away the skin and flesh like it was Kairi's head. "How could she hurt Riku like that?! I swear, when I see her I'm gonna – Oh speak of the devil."

There was Kairi, with Roxas next to her, looking a little pained, although Axel didn't know why. He sure seemed to be enjoying himself when he had his tongue stuck down the red-heads throat.

Axel and Naminé were both shooting death-glares at Kairi, the girl who ruined EVERYTHING, as they both got up almost simultaneously to go have a 'little word' with her. A quiet chat that would obviously result in a shouting match. Because these things normally do escalate into something uncontrollable, like a roller-coaster ride.

Roxas and Kairi sat at the table quietly, Sora gabbling on about random crap, "And Aerith said that Naminé should teach me what a 'kisssss' was and so Naminé said, 'yuk' and I laughed because she had a funny face and then Aerith told her to 'kisssss' me and she put her lips on my lips and then she jumped back and it was funny. Kairi would you kiss me?" Kairi looked up, alarmed, she'd forgotten about her love for Sora. Well, it wasn't like a definite love, it could slide for Roxas couldn't it...

"Er..." she began, looking at Roxas worriedly, Roxas wasn't looking at her though, he had this gormless look on his face, he looked as though someone he knew was about to die or something, "Roxas, are you with us? Roxas?" the girl waved a hand in front of his face.

"W-What? ... Oh yeah, yeah..." he jumped up startled, he turned to look at Kairi and Sora, smiled and went back into his gormless mode. He felt so ... so weird, he didn't know whether it was good weird or bad weird, he just felt it. Kairi shook her head, giggling softly at his behaviour.

"Haha! Look at Naminé's face! Will you kiss me again Naminé?" Naminé was standing grumpily staring at the table, blowing a piece of hair out of her vision.

"Get lost, I want to talk to your ex," she told the boy, striding over to Kairi who was looking up at the blonde girl with a look on her face was noticeably similar to the sad mask placed somewhere amongst the other drama related items placed on the school-shield logo thing, "So, why didn't you just leave Riku alone?"

"Why aren't you puking at Axel?" Kairi had regained her 'normal' self, mainly murderous, and was now standing up and advancing towards Naminé, "And plus, why couldn't Riku leave me alone, or is it because he prefers me to you? I didn't see him try to look up your skirt!"

"You BITCH!" Naminé shrieked, Axel winced as the blonde pushed Kairi into the table, Sora giggled. Kairi felt her back crack under the pressure of Naminé's anger, she squeaked before she got up and pushed Naminé back into Axel. Axel squeaked this time, but Naminé didn't seem to notice, soon the two girls were acting as though an Emperor of some sort was going to decide whether they live or not.

Roxas shut his eyes tight, this wasn't happening, everything was all wrong. His best friend had near enough killed someone else's best friend, he kissed her, she was testing her ability to live, everyone was staring at Roxas and his freaky best friend, including _him_. "Er..." the other boy began, Roxas opened his eyes and regretted it as he saw Kairi's fists, nose and forehead covered in blood. He closed them again, "Shouldn't we be doing that or something..." Roxas could here the boy wince as a loud 'CRACK' sounded. He opened his eyes and saw Kairi against the table. He could swear he could see Tidus in the background with his eyes wide open, screaming for more.

"Hell no..." Roxas replied weakly, as Kairi stood up trying to regain her stability, Naminé grabbing the chance and attacking her again. Roxas was scared and so was Sora it seemed who was trying to hide behind Yuffie, of all people, "I ... I could never... no..." Roxas gulped, his voice obviously failing on him as it reached the highest pitch the boy knew existed.

"Well ... it's kinda your fault that my friend was hurt so we could just shout at each other instead," Axel tried to compromise, Roxas gave in, he might as well.

"Okay then..." Roxas knew how to shout at Axel, he'd done it loads of times before... back when they weren't drama partners... back when the world seemed oh-so-simple... "Well, er ... GET YOUR STUPID FRIEND OFF KAIRI!" Naminé and Kairi suddenly halted as they stared at Roxas who really seemed to be burning with anger, Kairi smiled happily, _He's getting it..._ she thought, _He's fitting in ... he can act... _Her thoughts were suddenly stopped as Naminé whacked her in the face again and Kairi was brought back to her fight.

"THAT'S RICH COMING FROM YOU – I WASN'T THERE TO TELL YOU THE SAME THING!" Axel countered, Roxas knew the comeback to that, it was easy.

"WELL, YOU MIGHT'VE IF YOU HADN'T..." Roxas stopped _Crappp..._ he thought, now he'd have to say that he was really upset when Axel had swore at him, "IF YOU HADN'T ... IF YOU HADN'T ... If you had ... n't..." Axel pulled a face.

"Well, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SO STUPID!" he told the boy, who looked up at the taller boy, snatching a quick glance at the girls who were being prompted on by the chanting. Teachers sure were deaf these days.

"Well ... that doesn't matter now..." Roxas looked Axel straight in the eye, unblinking, Axel turned away, he knew what he meant, "Kairi did what she did and that's ... that..." Roxas finished. Axel pouted.

"I DON'T CARE HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU KISS!" Roxas flicked his head up, where had that come from? It was totally different to what they'd previously been arguing about. The whole room had now switched to staring at Roxas and Axel instead of Kairi and Naminé who were still at it like a couple of wolves.

* * *

_L/N/le gaspe!/ THEY FOUGHTTTTTT!! I guess that's really all I have to say...And that actually I **DO **like Yuffie. Just for those of you who took me seriously... O.o_

_S/N: I am not here cuz I'm stOoOoOoOoOoOoOopid!!_

_Skitts: **Rey**!_

_Lamatikah: Sorry..._


	8. And I swear he was the cutest thing

-Chapter 7-

-And I swear he was the cutest thing-

"And I was all … Get that sandwich outta your mouth, Riku!" giggled Naminé helplessly into her phone, coiling the wire – she was that old-fashioned she had to use a house phone as her mobile confused her more than Larxene's Maths lessons – around one finger idly. The sound of her 'boy' 'friend' scarfing his snack was creating crunchy stantic as he rolled the food around his mouth.

"S'out now, Nami. So, what did you want to talk to me about?" asked the voice, laced with a cackle so characteristic to Riku.

"Well, I… Ew, Riku, there's no WAY you could've swallowed that wad of bread that fast! What the hell did you do with it?" asked the blonde girl, getting a rather disturbing image of the boy spitting out the half-mangled, drool-encrusted unidentifiable food object out into his hand to continue his conversation with his 'girl' 'friend'. "Wait, no, don't answer that… I've already puked my brains out over the whole misunderstood gay thing and that damned illness."

"How is our dearest friend Axel, anyway?" asked Riku thickly, although she doubted it was through a large consumption of bread and peanut butter. Kairi must have busted his nose up pretty bad, he was talking all nasally. Naminé frowned and crumpled up the napkin in her hand, bringing back hated for the girl.

"Oh, he's fine… He's totally straight, y'know?" she prattered on, as merrily as the falling rain, not paying a heed if she getting people wet or annoying them. But she never annoyed Riku. "He's a straight as a…"

"Roundabout?" suggested Riku in his flippant, sarcastic way, but the effect was ruined somewhat as his voice went all weird. Static plus busted nose didn't equal a smooth, prince-charming-esque voice.

"You're not helping," hummed the girl, tilting her head to fit the phone loosely in the space between her cranium and neck, tearing apart the napkin into paper confetti. "Anyway, him beside, today at drama was totally crazy…"

"Axel and Roxas were making out? With _tongue_?" asked the teen, and Naminé tore at the napkin more ferociously. That sort of stuff was a touchy subject with her now – it hit a nerve. Axel had been her friend since she was, ooh, _this high_, and she didn't like people making fun of his sexual orientation or spreading rumours about him. That were so obviously NOT TRUE, because she was old-fashioned in two counts – she avoided her mobile and gay couples like the plague.

"Don't be silly," she chastised in a false mother way. "No, if you need proof of Axel's straight-ness, Roxas and Kairi were totally making out in drama. With _tongue_," she added with relish, grinning wickedly even though the boy was separated from her by a long length of telephone wire. Or invisible wires, because she guessed Riku was talking through his snooty, posh thing-a-ma-flippy phone.

Well, screw that idea. They were separated by **something**, at any rate.

"Wow…" said Riku, his voice trailing away until it was taken over by the buzzing static. Naminé pressed the device closer to her ear, manoeuvring her head so it wouldn't slip from the nook she'd formed for it whilst she destroyed napkins.

"I know. He he, and I had to show Sora how to kiss," moaned the girl with an expressive eyeroll.

"YOU HAD TO WHAT?! OH MY GOD!" roared Riku, but his voice was addled with pain from his aching noise and the crappy quality of Naminé's old-fashioned home phone. Well, his reaction probably would have been more explosive if she had been in his room when he exploded it, but if they were in his room more questionable things than shouting matches would have been going. Teenagers didn't spend all their time 'talking'.

Naminé giggled. "He tasted like a gutted fish. I should know – we live on a fish island. D'aw ,Riku, I wish I could see your face, shining with anger for your loyal Juliette!"

"Right, Sora's going on my mental stabbity-stab list. And… what else?" asked Riku, sounding disgruntled and in pain and pissed off and probably suicidal or murderous. Hmn, Riku was like a sphere – a lot of emotions could radiate around the surface.

"Hmn, I had a fist-fight with Kairi in the canteen… SHE WAS PISSING ME OFF SO MUCH! How could she have DONE that to you?!"

Her statement was received by a blank pause filled with crackly static and breathing – well, she HOPED Riku was breathing, only it was through the mouth because the nose was crapped up. And then 'it' happened. The loud exclaimation of: "GO NAMI! GO NAMI! I HOPE YOU FUCKED HER UP SO MUCH SHE CAN'T WALK! I MEAN, I – OWWCH!"

It sounded like yelling so loud had busted up his scarlet-crusted nose some more. "Owww! JESUS! Naminé, talk to you later, honey… My nose has … exploded… Damn Kairi…."

There was a beep, and the static again. The only thing that would complete the picture more was some tumbleweed.

Axel stared at his pencil on his table-top, almost as if he was expecting it to do something. Like a few back-flips finishing off in a fancy little Irish jig. Or for it to become possessed with a life of its own and scribble down all the answers to the complex Maths equations for him, the glaringly white sheet taunting him, poking him.

"_Hehehehe, I'm full of COMPLEX PROBLEMS that your tiny mind can never hope to fathom! I'm bamboozling beyond relief as you stew in your own juice … STEW IN IT!_" commanded the high-pitched voices buzzing around in his skull. The little piece of paper studded with meaningless black numbers continued to telepathically send its tiki chant driving like spears into his head, until he had the urge to throw it in the bin, accompanying the deft movement with a chorus of: "Take that, SUCKER!" Unfortunately, he was doing crappity crap in Maths as it was, and he didn't want to get lower than the C he was barely managing to scrape up.

Even **Selphie** was filling in the answers in energetically, and she used to be bottom in Maths, so maybe … Maybe it meant AXEL was bottom in Maths now … Unless she was filling the white, blank boxes with random numbers that poked the corners of her brain until she had to scrawl them down in her unintelligible print.

But Selphie didn't have a certain blonde haired boy stuck in her mind. No, wait, maybe she did … Every few seconds she shot a few discreet glances at Tidus, his hair in all its weird pineapple-like glory, sitting like a crown on his head. But she didn't have ROXAS in her mind, at any rate.

It seemed like … Roxas was now occupying a full-to-bursting corner of his mind, sort of like when you tried to cram too much into your schoolbag in a mad rush to escape lessons. It felt that his mind, like his old schoolbag, would burst at the seams, spewing out everything and leaving it blank and empty and useless. So his brain would be joining his schoolbag in the scrap heap.

"Roxas… I hate you…" muttered Axel under his breath. "You're giving me an F in Maths, you … you…" Several adjectives crossed his mind, but most of them of the praising variety, making him want to bang his head on his desk in despair. Or backtrack to plan A and throw the paper in the bin screaming 'TAKE THAT SUCKER!' For, all Roxas was in Axel's mind now was _cute_, _adorable_, _sweet_… Not sickly sweet like an over-dose of sugar, but with a look spun with candy cotton that made Axel want to melt into a pile of pink goop. Not that Roxas was in his Maths class – so he couldn't see the glazed look on Axel's face – because he was smart and in a higher set for the smart kids.

"Alright then class!" chirruped Larxene in a chipper (yet still vaguely frightening) manner, sat upon her regal throne – desk – with her legs crossed in a very lady-like pose, positioning them with great care so as not to display her underwear to the rest of the world. Really, she was just asking for trouble wearing a _miniskirt _to teach a bunch of hormonal, sex-mad boys. Maybe it was all some clever ploy so they'd be too distracted trying to get an eyeful of her undies to notice as she gave them all 'F's and forced them into cruel jobs gutting fish. Her feminine charms weren't working with Axel though – there was only one blonde who he seemed to be vaguely interested in. And Roxas didn't talk to him about Algebra – didn't talk to him at all anymore, really.

"Put down your pencils and pencil sharpeners and what-not and crap…" she said in a highly unprofessional manner, as she tugged at the hem of her skirt that seemed unwilling to cover more than her thighs. "And swap 'em with your partner for marking…"

Oh … Shit …

Axel looked down at his sheet. He had only answered about a quarter of the questions, and those answers were smudged beyond comprehension, and he'd also embellished his scrappy, crappy sheet with… How the HELL that THAT got there?! He guessed he must have doodled it when his brain was half-melting like sticky-toffe-pudding, not really thinking of the consequences it would bring.

_I 3 Roxas…_

"Axel?!" asked Larxene in her mature, sophisticated, savvy voice, tilting her head like a cute little robin. Pshh. Larxene wasn't cute – she wouldn't hesitate to throw you out of a window if you looked up her skirt wrong. "Can I have your sheet, please? I'm marking yours, I don't trust Selphie…"

Axel would've trusted the brunette either, she had pink gel pen all over her hands and somehow it had exploded over her face and top too, a sad, crumpled and chewed and mauled about object on the desk next to her. She must have got hungry at some point and decided to see if gel pen was edible.

"And I saw you doodling idly on your sheet. Was there any excuse for it? Were you comprising a musical to rival Mozart? A masterpiece to rival Monet? Hmnn?" she inquired in her dangerous voice, as Axel reached for his eraser to get rid of the incriminating evidence on his sheet.

"No! Leave it, Axel, I want to see what was so much more important than my quiz…"

Axel's shoulders slumped; his ketchup-red hair seemed to droop like a wilting plant deprived of sunlight. He knew he was resigned to the gallows, as he made his melancholy way to the front of the class to hand his crumpled, smudged paper to the evil teacher. The look on her face was expectant and oozing darkness and heartless-ness and screaming 'I R EVIL' from every angle, the shadows dipping around her cheekbones and pooling under her eyes so they looked like sockets.

"Thank you, Axel," she said brightly, receiving the torn-up, dog-eared piece of crap from her loyal student, who shuffled back to his face, hanging his head. _I'm going to get crucified…_

"Well, class, I can assure you the answer to number one is not…" Larxene tilted her head and made a great spectacle of holding his paper up to the light, as if his writing was so bad it was impossible to read, like some sort of code needing to be cracked. This prompted a few giggles from Selphie and Yuffie and that crowd, and Tidus grinned. "Shit…" she read from the sheet, and Yuffie snorted. It was obvious nobody else had used their mathematical minds to deduce that a plus fifty-two c multiplied by 5 was not 'shit'. "Hmn… No, no, no. Did I not get it through your bone-head brain that swear-words will NOT suffice as answers in MY class? Kids, if you want to know what the answers are, they are not obscenities like 'fuck' and 'bastard'. You've probably scored a hell of a lot more than our resident master-mind, Mr. Axel…"

Axel flushed a shade of tomato and looked down at his desk. The children's faces were all contorted into laugher, and he swore Yuffie actually had _tears_ rolling down her cheeks. Larxene's antics were even prompting a snigger from stoic Lulu who was hunched up in her corner, drowning in her emo-ness and long black hair. And she hadn't even got to the WORST part yet, as the blonde-haired woman paraded around the room, swinging her hips and reciting Axel's answers in a high-pitched voice that was meant to be _him_. His voice HAD broken!

"Shit, shit, ooh, for variety we'll write … Oohh…" Larxene's eyes glinted, and Axel didn't like that look. She was … **killing him**, as he sunk lower down in his seat to get away from the laughter bursting his ear-drums all directed at him, the looks of pity and 'you spazz' all directed at him.

"For variety, we'll write … Roxas. _I love Roxas_," recited Larxene in her merry way.

There was a silence, and then … A roar of laughter met her words, and writhing looks shot in Axel's way, as Wakka moved his head back in mirth and smacked it against the wall, much to the red-head's delight.

"So _this_ is why you're so inattentive in my lessons! You're in **love**… Aww, young romances never last… Why do you think I'm a 'miss'?"

… Axel sighed, slamming his head into his desk; to disguise the fact his face was the tone of a cherry.

_This is getting out of hand… Roxas … is becoming an obsession!_

-Chapter 8-  
-You were joking right?-

Roxas hurried round the corner, he had to get away from the jeering taunts and points. He was running so fast he didn't notice the tall kid bump into him, he was so surprised he got knocked over backwards and ended up on the floor.

"Ooopssosorry..." the kid turned round, "Oh ... it's ... you..." he murmured, blushing slightly, "Er ... so ... er ... need any help?" he asked, obviously embarrassed. Roxas pulled a face and held out his hand so the red-head could pull him up.

"Yeah ... thanks ... erm..." Roxas wasn't quite sure on what to say, this was very awkward, "So ... er ... er ... Naminé was talking to Riku yesterday and his nose exploded again ... Oh wait ... he's your friend ... not good..." Roxas was quickly trying to get rid of the awkward atmosphere. Wasn't working.

"Yeah ... not good ... erm..." they both knew what each other was thinking, but couldn't quite spit it out. Soon, the atmosphere was getting so tense Axel knew he had to say something before he burst, "IDON'TLOVEYOU!" he cried out, instantly hiding his face behind his hand.

"Yes ... er ... good..." Roxas was desperately searching for words that would fit, "Well ... erm ... you sure you were joking ... or whatever?" he asked, realising that this was just NOT the right thing to say, in fact it was the worst thing he could have said.

Axel gulped and breathed in, "Yes, yes I'm sure..." his head was screaming at him to tell the blonde boy, ILOVEYOU ILOVEYOU ILOVEYOU ... but Axel didn't love Roxas ... did he?

"Ok ... well ... see you at drama tomorrow..." Roxas waved goodbye as he hurried down the corridor, that was weird. Inside his head, he could hear the bells ringing, He's lying he's lying he's lying. He gulped, he sure hoped he wasn't.

"Woah! Watch out little boy!" the teacher staring down at Roxas laughed, hey, he knew her, she was that teacher ... crap.

"Sorry miss..." he answered meekly, he really didn't want her to recognise him.

"Hang on a second! You're ... ROXAS! That's right, have you heard, Axel's in LOVE!" she cried out, waving her arms about as if she owned the world, Roxas nodded and pulled a face that was meant to resemble a smile. It didn't look like one though, "Awwww ... I can see it! I'm sure you'll make a GREAT couple ... until the engagement and when the arguments start and you find out you're pregnant with someone else and then you don't know how to tell him and when you do he hits you and kills your baby and you're left all alone to have your crappy job as a maths teacher with fifteen year old kids look up your skirt..." she added darkly. Roxas winced as she told him her life story, he really did not need to know that ... he also did not need the mental image of him wearing a skirt...

"Er ... ok..." he felt a sudden urge to tell her everything, she just had, "Miss ... if I tell you something ... do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Well..." she looked at the earnest look on his face, and melted, he looked like a little sad teddy bear. She smiled and sat down on a bench and patted the seat next to her, "Come on then..."

Roxas rocked on the soles of his feet, he wasn't sure what he was doing, this was Larxene, the teacher who was 'in'. If he wanted to confess his inner most secrets it would be better to go to Aerith, but she was the one who had started it to begin with.

He sat himself down next to the teacher and started, "OK ... well erm..." and he told her everything. The minute he stopped he mentally stabbed himself. Crappp... he thought, What have I done?

"Well Roxas ... I think we've made ... progress today..." Larxene told him shakily, she didn't know what to think of this, this was all too much, "Er ... well ... if anything else ... happens ... you know who to come to..." Roxas nodded, biting his lip.

He sidled round the corner and as soon as he was out of view, he ran for all he was worth, his eyes streaming, down out of the playground and all the way back home.

"..."

Well, that was the only suitable response to Aerith's happy proclamation. The whole class was plunged into the dark realms of the '...'ness that signified there was nothing to say on the subject apart from horrified gasps.

"Well, you all sound HAPPY! You all sound PYSCHED!" giggled the teacher happily, spinning around, her hippie pink skirts billowing around her thin legs. It depressed Kairi slightly that all the teachers had better figures than her... "I knew you'd all LOVE my idea! Especially you, Roxas!"

"..."

The blonde boy looked down in absolute '...'ness at the horror sitting in his lap. No, it wasn't Sora's evil Moogle brandishing it's butcher knife making 'stabby stabby' motions, but he had no doubt the thing could become animated at will and fly around and smother him it felt like it.

Axel moved forwards to poke 'it' cautiously like an unexploded time-bomb. Tick tick tick... All that poking was angering 'it', as Roxas snatched it back, not wanting it to blow up in Axel's face.

"Tough luck, Roxy... But, er, I think that's more suited to your size..." commented the red-head, looking at the ... ... ... DRESS. All the commotion had been about a DRESS. But not just any DRESS. The most evil DRESS ever created, with sugary powdery, power-puff-girl-ary pink ribbons tied around it in the most un-male way possible. Well, any dress/skirt was un-male, unless you counted a kilt... WHICH WAS STILL UN-MALE.

Roxas imagined a little Scottish man sat in a corner of his brain, yelling curses and hacking away at his head with a pick and a Loch Ness Monster.

"I'm sure you'll make a pretty princess, Roxas, you're the right BUILD!" grinned Aerith, dancing around in a haze of feminine (pink was FEMININE) colours like a lollipop.

Roxas looked down cautiously at his chest – HE DID NOT HAVE BOOBS. What the hell was she talking about???? He wasn't the right 'build' to have to resort to discreetly stealing Kairi's bras...

"And you have lovely blonde hair like a princess and sweet blue eyes..." trilled the deluded woman, who saw the world through rose-tinted specs. In HER world Naminé and Sora got on perfectly and Riku didn't have a blood-encrusted nose and wasn't looking all murderous toward Kairi. In HER world Roxas ... had ... boobs..

"Put on your outfits, then!" commanded Aerith in her happy hippy voice, as Yuffie surveyed her ninja attire handed to her and giggled, swooshing her plastic shrukien and making Selphie squeak. Selphie was transformed into a bunny, and reminded Roxas strongly of the Playboy one... Oh, shudder. Aerith was ... deluded... If she thought this was a GOOD idea. Surely anybody would notice how intently Tidus was looking at Selphie, as he played at batting her bunny ears.

"And... Er... This is going... to ... be..." Roxas looked at her quizzically. So she didn't really know what they were doing, but wanted an excuse to put Roxas into a dress? Well... That was just damn unprofessional.

"You look nice," said Axel, smiling as Aerith fumbled around with her notes, finding out exactly why she had put Roxas in a princess dress. Roxas flushed red – he didn't mean it. He was joking... Roxas jiggled about on the floor, realising how tight the dress was on him... And ... CRAP... Axel was LOOKING at him, he better look away, let's fix our eyes on, hmn...

NO, NOT ON KAIRI IN HER SLUTTY OUTFIT, hmn, ooh, look, hahahaha, Aerith dropped her notes in giant paper cloud and... a piece of paper got caught on Sora's moogle attire ... How ironic... And for some reason Riku was wearing a skirt, hmn, and this muscle-builder thingy with an EEVVIILLLL heartless symbol on it... Looking at Naminé who was dressed up like a mermaid, in all her cheap, green crinkly-paper tail-ism. And a weird ... shell ... thingy ... Bra ... WHAT THE HELL DID AERITH HAVE WITH BOOBS? WHAT DID RIKU HAVE WITH THEM?!

"Aye, we're all going to ... perform a roleplay... Get into the head of your character and how they may express their love to eachother ... NOT LIKE THAT, WAKKA..." she sighed in an exasperated voice, as evil man puckered up his lips and looked at Lulu expectantly, who backed away with a look of pure horror on her face.

When it seemed all scariness had been diverted, a shrill scream rang through the room, as the Sora-moogle paraded around the room brandishing a shiny rock he'd found on the floor, singing a ... scary ... chant a bit like voodoo...

"I KILL EVEYRONE! I KILL EVERYONE! ESPECIAL-ARLY RIIIKKKUUU! ESPECIAL-ARLY RIKKKUUUUUUU!" he chorused, moving forward in a roly-poly graceful way, waving the rock around and nearly poking Riku's eyes out.

"SORA WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"I'm being my pet moogle, miss..." he said sheepishly, backing away with a look of horror on his poor, innocent, moogle-al-ised face. Riku was backed into a corner shivering in his skirt like a jelly. He'd had enough encounters with evil moogles to last a life-time, without Sora turning into one...

Roxas giggled, "Okay ... how 'bout this ... Oh Prince Charm ... EEEE ... I love you!!" doing a great show of jumping into his arms, Axel sagged a little. The kid may be small, but he sure was heavy!

Axel laughed, "Yeah! Er..." Axel was about to proclaim his undying love for the boy as he rested in his arms. But, before he could the door creaked, he instantly pulled Roxas closer to him, in case the door would suddenly jump and attack the blonde boy.

"Oh er..." their headteacher walked in, noticing through the vast amounts of thirty-odd children, the two in each other's arms, the two happened to both be boys. He sucked in some air ... why in his day... "Er ... Aerith dear ... I was just wondering ... could I have a word with you..." He eyed Roxas again, he seemed to be asleep. Axel was clutching him tightly as though Ansem was about to steal him, "And I was also wondering why Mr." he stressed the word 'Mr.' to indicate the fact that he was male, "Roxas is wearing a dress..."

Aerith smiled brightly, "Please don't call me dear ... you are nothing but a boss to me and I am married! Well, about Roxy, DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WONDERFUL!" Roxas' eyes snapped open ... he had been dreaming ... what had happened while he had been dreaming? He looked up and saw Axel ... Oh yes ... Axel... "We're doing roleplay!"

"Axel ... you're ... crushing ... me..." Roxas whispered, gathering as much air as he could, Axel let go of him, a little reluctantly.

"Er ... roleplay ... erm ... yes ... anyway ... could I talk to you for a moment ... keep ... going ... kids..." he added, taking one last fleeting look at Roxas and Axel who had since regained proper standing positions and were watching him with a suspicious eye. Ansem shuddered ... why, in his day...

"Old fart..." Axel muttered as the old man left the room, "Hehe ... did you see the way he looked when he saw you?!? It was the best!" Axel laughed, Roxas giggled nervously. He sounded a lot like ... Naminé when he did that. Axel shuddered.

"Hehe ... yes ... well ... I had my eyes closed ... so I didn't really see anything..." Roxas told the taller boy what he already knew.

"Well, you better tell me what you were thinking about then!" the red-head commanded the blonde boy brightly.

"Hehe ... nothing really ... just ... dunno ... nothing really..." Roxas desperately wanted to tell Axel what he had really been thinking about, but that would just be ... Roxas shuddered.

"What's the matter? Are you cold?"

"Er ... no, do you want to carry on?"

"OK!" Axel nodded brightly, instantly switching back into 'I-must-protect-Roxas-from-every-single ... thing' mode.

**-x-x-x-**

**L/N: **_Hello again!! Keeping to my strict rule, Skitts /smugness/_


	9. Selphie Has A Big Butt

-Chapter 9-  
-Selphie has a big butt...-

"I wish I had a camera..." mused Axel, chewing on the tip of his fountain pen. He already had a load of lovely black splodges of ink on his face and hands, pooling around the creases in his jumper. Hmn... His mother would be so proud of him when laundry night rolled over!

"Why?" asked Riku, free of his skirty-evil-Hawaiian thing, doodling a little stick man he'd christened 'M1K3TT M05' with humongous ears. Aye, that scary little dude would be earning him rich Fs in art! Better than 'Unremarkable', anyway... He suppressed a shudder as he looked at Axel's work. It was comprised of a blank sheet of paper adorned with black blotches. Well, Picasso's paintings generally looked like that anyway and he was FAMOUS!

"Did you see Sora's play? God, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen! I mean, how the hell does vampiristic moogles relate in any possible way to romance? Naminé was beating her head against the wall in despair at the end of it!" he snickered, the poor art teacher, Marluxia, attempting to fill their heads with thoughts other than girls ... waffles ... moogles ... girls ... ... girls ... PICASSO WAS IMPORTANT! He invented the ... er... Marluxia looked ready to cry in his very camp, girly way, tearing at his lovely pink hair. Picasso didn't create herbal essence shampoo or anything COOL like that... No wonder his class didn't care!

"Yeah... Uh, in mine Kairi sort of sat there looking slutty..." shrugged Riku. "At least she wasn't too hard on the eyes!"

"... You're a pervert, you know that?" asked Axel, as Riku grinned and leant forward to ping his pencil at the 'hot' girl sitting in front of him. Not Naminé – she was far too good at art to be stuck in bottom set.

The girl who had been pinged with the pencil turned around angrily and glared at Riku, before settling back to her work, snapping his only pencil in half. Well, it had been worse – on other occasions she'd broken out the watercolour paints and the classroom had been treated to a lovely paint job. It was at moments like that Marluxia wanted to commit suicide. His lovely room... CRAPPY-IFIED!

"Rikku... You bitch..." murmured Riku angrily, staring down at his unfinished masterpiece. "Oh well... I guess I'll have to flunk then! Now..." he pushed his sheet away, finding it wasn't there to distract his conversation with Axel any more. "The hell was going on with you and Roxas in drama?"

Axel frowned as he continued to happily – or depressingly – flick his paint around on his sheet with no real purpose. Riku didn't have to be so nosy – he figured he'd be staring at Kairi or Naminé all lesson. "Why do you care?"

"Woah... No need to get all defensive..." said Riku, looking forwards to stare at the back of Roxas' head, as it bobbed about in heated conversation with Tidus about who was hotter – Kairi or Selphie.

"... I DON'T CARE," snarled Axel, reaching down and crumpling up his 'painting'. He was going to fail his 'lovely flower drawing' assignment, but so was everybody else, so he didn't give a damn. "I don't have any FEELINGS for Roxas, okay?"

There was a long pause, as Riku shrugged. "Whatever you say, dude..." he said, but he looked uncertain. "... You've got to tell him at some point, you know?"  
"... I HATE YOU." Axel told him simply.

∞∙∞∙∞

"I'm telling you – Selphie's butt is BIG!!" Roxas informed Tidus, Tidus frowned, there was a long pause.

"Well ... I GIVE UP! KAIRI'S PERFECT IN EVERY WAY!! BUT I LIKE SELPHIE BETTER!!" he told Roxas, without realising that he'd actually told the whole class, "Anyway ... you don't like Kairi so why are you so defensive?"

"Because she's my best friend and she's the hottest girl in the class..." he looked at Tidus with an air of knowledgeableness. Tidus shrugged, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well ... Kairi maybe the hottest girl ... but who do you think's the hottest boy?" he asked, a little slyly.

Roxas' eyes immediately was captivated by Wakka who was sitting in the corner picking his nose, muttering some sort of chant which went something like, "I'm gonna get you and then I'm gonna eat you ... man..." Roxas shuddered ... Ew...

"No ... that's wrong ... all the boys in our class are gross..." Tidus grinned.

"So, you're saying that you like boys?" he asked grinning his evil Cheshire cat like smile. The look that always made Roxas get a bit worried.

"... No ... but I'm just saying, that all the boys in this class are gross ... including you ... you like watching Selphie and her big butt..." he shuddered yet again.

"What about Axel? I saw you were having a little ... shall we say ... 'moment' back in drama, you've had quite a lot of 'moments' in drama actually..." Tidus snapped back, still grinning.

"Well ... I kissed Kairi ... so that makes it all better ... and anyways, Axel wasn't hugging me ... he was CRUSHING me!!" Roxas told Tidus as he turned round to look at Axel who was cursing a piece of sellotape which adamantly attached itself to his finger. Riku, being in the top maths group, was obviously clever to know that all he had to do was cut it off, but he had already decided that the 'clever' thing to do was point and laugh.

"Kissing Kairi doesn't mean you don't likkkkeee Axel! Kissing Kairi means you're in denial ... and you'll do anything you can to get a good drama grade..." Roxas scowled, damn that Tidus ... he knew eevveerryytthhiinngg...

"... I HATE YOU." Roxas told him simply.

∞∙∞∙∞

It was weird, it was a sin against nature, but Sora, goofy Sora with way-too-big yellow shoes and weird red jump suit and prone-ness to knocking objects over was good at art. Armed with a trusty paintbrush he was virtually unstoppable against his evil nemesis – the blank sheet of paper. The smart kids' art room walls were cluttered up with the boy's masterpieces, all stunningly beautiful and amazing. When you compared the scene of shooting stars across an island to the clumsy boy knocking over bags and coats and stools (and people) to get to the art cabinet, it seemed wrong that such a gift had been given to such a klutz. But Sora was crappy at most other stuff, and needed something to be good at...

"Sora... What's that?" asked the red-headed girl, moving her head closer to examine his latest masterpiece. It was pretty, and it was only half-sketched out, the set of watercolour paints (in much nicer condition than the ones Rikku liked to throw about) screaming to make it look even better. Sora patted the box. Soon, watercolours ... soon...

"Well, uh, it's a surprise. But Luxord said I'd finished all my assignments and work so I could start on something in my own free time..." said the brunette, blushing slightly as he continued to pour his deep, meaningful part into his art. It was the only time he was ever serious, because it was impossible for him not to act all hyper and 'cracky' and 'whhhhhhhheeeeeeeeee' like.

Said teacher glared at Kairi, who was only really a mediocre artist at best. "Don't squander your time, girl!" he barked and Kairi suppressed a grin as she turned her attention back her picture of 'a lovely cricket'. Jiminy had promised to leave her alone if she drew him for her animal composition.

Sora continued to work on his picture, humming the German version of 'Barbie girl' merrily, much to Naminé's annoyance, as it caused her to give her supermodel mother a moustache. She looked down at her picture in horror – she was a brilliant artist too, but she couldn't unlock her full potential with the German version of Barbie girl blaring in her ears, and ... oh dear God ... the words had somehow managed to become merged with 'Bimbo girl'. Dear God, this was TORTURE.

"My boobs are made of plastic..." muttered Sora merrily, stamping his feet to the rhythm, cracking open the paint tin, selecting his favourite brush. "My lips of elastic..."

Kairi, meanwhile, continued to squander her time by giggling at Sora's singing. Luxord didn't mind – Sora was his favourite student. Apart from that time he slammed the teacher's finger in the door and it turned all weird and green... No, Luxord was not happy when Sora did that... But it was all easily overlooked. If Naminé had done that, however...

After a few minutes of working in silence, Sora added the finishing touch of red to his artwork and moved his head back to examine it. Perfect... He blushed, as he delicately poked Kairi in the back, only it wasn't so delicate, jabbing her roughly so she made an ugly black paint streak across her picture.

"What, Sora?" she asked.

"..." Sora felt a little guilty, he motioned towards his perfect picture and looked towards the train wreck that was Kairi's... Oh well...

"That's really good!" praised Kairi, wondering how anybody could paint that good when singing Bimbo girl... "I mean, I ... hey..." she studied it more carefully. And a bit more ... Her eyes widened, as she pointed towards the two people. "That's me ... And that's you..."

Indeed it was, and they were squandering their time (as Luxord would have put it) by sharing a piece of ... papou fruit between them?

**-x-x-x-**

**L/N:** If the beginning of this is crappy... please don't blame me...


	10. Got It Memorized?

-Chapter 10-  
-Got it memorized?-

"So what did you think of yesterday?" asked Riku, he had his arm round Naminé as she ate her apple, "I mean ... if you're alright talking about it ... you looked a bit pale..." he added quickly, wondering whether she was over the 'I-will-be-sick-everytime-I-see-gay-people/I-had-flu-shifty-eyes-phase'. She shrugged.

"Dunno ... Oh well ... Axel had feelings for Roxas, big whupp!" she said dryly, she didn't feel like talking about it particularly, there was an awkward silence. Naminé buried her head in Riku's shoulder, "Riku?"

"Mmmm?" he replied, gazing out into the sea, the pier sure was a pretty viewpoint.

"Do you love me?" she asked, bored.

"'Course..." he told her, resting his head on hers. She smiled.

"Good..." they sat there for a while watching the sunset. It wasn't until the tip of the sun was the only part visible did they hear the shouts coming from their best friend calling them.

"RIKU ... NAMINÉ!! C'MON, YOU'VE BEEN THERE BASKING IN EACH OTHER'S LOVE FOR LONG ENOUGH!!" Axel called out to the two. Naminé and Riku turned round, a glazed look on their faces, the sorts of when you come out of a cinema after watching an extremely long movie. "Ah ... you two..." Axel sighed happily.

"What?" asked Riku. Axel studied the boy, he seemed to have lost all sarcasm and dryness and really all complete 'bastard-ie-ness' when he was with Naminé. He thought he liked this Riku better. Maybe Naminé brought out the best in people, like Sora's pervy-ness to her undies... But no, that wasn't the best part of Sora... He hoped.

"Oh ... I was just wondering when you two were going to make out – Tidus and Wakka are placing bets..." Axel informed him happily, not seeming to notice the flush appearing on Riku's face that could rival Axel's hair. Really, Axel didn't have one romantic bone in his body, unless it involved ... Roxas ... in a dress.

"Shurrup," mumbled Riku. "What I do with MY girlfriend is no concern of you! Maybe if you got yourself a girlfriend you wouldn't be so interested in what me and Naminé are doing..."

"What? I ... Riku..." he said in a warning voice, glaring at the arrogant prat. Ah, that was the same Riku he knew didn't-really-love... The same Riku who infuriated moogles so much they followed him around screaming death chants and pissed off Kairi. Maybe Naminé didn't bring out the best in people, after all, and was just sort of ... there ... Yes, she was solid enough, Axel could deduce she was most definitely 'there'.

"Of course, you don't want a girlfriend, Axel, what am I talking about?" asked Riku in a happy sing-song voice, flanked with a backdrop of forced 'LA LA LA's from Naminé who had her ears covered by her hands, not listening.

"I'M NOT LISTENING, LA LA LA!" she chanted, to confirm the fact printed above. "Hmm... La la la ..." Somehow it managed to merge into the tune of Bimbo girl, as she swayed her head gently. Damn Sora for ruining her damn art (that wasn't damn cause her art was GOOD) and knocking that damn song into her damn head.

"... Riku, don't mention it," hissed Axel. "If Naminé's sick, she'll have to throw up all over you. It's common courtesy to be sick all over your boyfriend," he said in a knowledgeable voice.

"LA LA LA!"

∞∙∞∙∞

Aerith pouted slightly as she surveyed the class, "Well chilllldrrrren," she hissed, she sounded a little bit like Larxene when she did that ... Oh the horror ... "Because of yesterday's ... ahem ... roleplay ... Ansem – our WONDERFUL and BENEVOLENT headteacher, in his fits of WONDERFUL and BENEVOLENTNESS, has decided that we should scrap ... our ... wonderful ... costumes..." she looked like she was in tears. Roxas pulled a face before joining the class' cheer rippling around the room like a wave. Tidus and Riku weren't as happy though.

"Whew! I don't like sluts..." Kairi murmured, she wondered how far it could have lead to. She shuddered.

"Hehe ... yes ... this is good..." Axel muttered, a little put out.

"SORA! GET AWAY FROM ME!" screamed Naminé as the little boy edged closer to her. She had no idea why he was doing it ... she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"Hehe, c'mere Sora," Kairi laughed, "Screw Aerith! Riku can have Naminé, you're MINE!" Sora skipped over to the girl and Riku lumbered over to Naminé.

"Oh ... OK then ... NO WAIT! RIKU WITH KAIRI; NAMINÉ WITH SORA! Kids..." Riku walked back over to Kairi and Sora merrily skipped back over to Naminé, giggling.

"Er ... anyway, in your pairs, today we'll do ... er ... OH! Just do something related to love, I'm going to go get our costumes back..." she rolled up her sleeves and waltzed out the room, looking kinda like her husband Cloud, who was in the army ... and killed people ... with giant swords ... yes ... swords...

Roxas looked tentatively at Axel, feeling glad that he wasn't clothed in bright pink princess crap. Their feelings didn't seem to be mutual, however, as the red-head looked a little upset.

"You did look nice in that dress, Roxy..." he mused, making the blonde boy cringe. He didn't appreciate Axel teasing him about that, no matter how serious his voice sounded he couldn't mean it. Roxas was a boy, boys were not suited to wear dresses, end of story.

"... Don't mention ... the ... thing ... Axel..." hummed Roxas, picking at the fluff on the carpet, as Naminé went about very loudly failing the task Aerith had set them by denying her love of the brunette boy fiercely.

"But Naminé ... I thought we had something SPECIAL!" cried Sora ,eyes large, looking a little bit like the characters in those Japanese novels ... Mangas. "How could you, after all this time?! I LOVED YOU!" wailed the boy, now writhing on the floor as if in agony, clutching to Naminé's leg. "DON'T LEAVE! THINK OF ALL THE FOND MEMORIES WE HAD!"

Naminé remembered ... The only time she and Sora had bonded it had been over one of those weird paper hats the nurse had, being sick. Yes, fond memories indeed...

Axel averted his eyes carefully from the drama, as Sora continued to wail as if he was being tortured by aliens from space, banging his fist against the floor. Naminé looked very, very frightened, her hair dishevelled as she looked around like some sort of crazy woman. There was a loud bang, as Sora managed to remove her sandal and it flew through the air in a graceful arc, bobbing Wakka on the head. It was kind of hard not to pay attention – everybody else was, as Naminé looked around frantically for some sort of escape from the ring of kids that had formed around her and Sora. They were all laughing and making unhelpful suggestions, one of the worst from Tidus, who informed her that cutting stuff up with big swords then throwing pears at them was the way to go.

"... So ... Roxas..." Axel said in a serious tone, but it was sort of hard to be serious while Sora was screaming at Naminé to come back or he'd have to take his life. Wakka was also cursing about the bruise forming on his scalp, hidden by his orange hair, and Kairi was stabbing Riku with her fingers, saying something about 'it's all your fault, you and your ... puffy ... pants!'

"Ah, screw this..." muttered Axel, as Naminé's other sandal flew across the room, did a few back-flips in the air and gave Riku a lovely black eye, sending him flying back cursing about 'damned flying shoes'. Axel really did hope the traumatised Sora wouldn't rip her dress off next. "It's impossible to be SERIOUS with these lunatics!"

"MAN WHO KEEPS HITTING ME MAN?!" roared Wakka, as Sora's arms flailed around, hitting random children that got too close, like a malfunctioning toy.

"PLEASE COME BACK I'LL BE A BETTER MAN! I'LL HELP THE POOR AND SAVE THE WHALES!" promised Sora, tears almost rolling down his cheeks. Well, it was obvious who was the new star of the drama class, although Roxas strongly thought Sora hadn't realised it wasn't real and was being true ... Oh dear, this was getting more and more awkward. Especially since Axel wasn't even looking at what was going on, and had his eyes fixed on Roxas. He looked SERIOUS, and that was bad, because now Naminé was cursing and Sora had managed to drag her onto the floor. "I'D MISS YOU!" he screamed. "I'D MISS YOU SO MUCH MY HEART WOULD BREAK!"

"SORA GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" screamed the poor Naminé, clawing around on the floor to receive one of her sandals, beating him over the head with it. He clung to her legs like a limpet, sobbing. And Axel ... didn't CARE! Axel was being SERIOUS at a time like this! Roxas had a strong suspicion that even if Sora did manage to murder Naminé he wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

"Roxas... I have something to tell you..." continued Axel, trying to block out all that extra classroom noise. "... Damnit, this is really hard..." He would have liked to have picked out a better time to confess his feelings, but it was tearing up his inside, so he didn't care that he was going to tell him in a classroom full of devils anymore.

"I HATE YOU SORA! YOU'VE RUINED MY NEW SHOES!" screamed the girl angrily, laying on the floor limply as Sora gave her bone-crushing hug that could crack a nut. She wasn't even trying any more, but Sora was still convinced she'd scamper off if he let her go. He was always prepared, Sora...

"I ... I ... like you, Roxas. More than Naminé likes Sora, anyway..." he stated, because it was kind of hard not to mention what was going. It was like some sort of cool new band, and everything you said HAD to include that. It was impossible to ignore the antics of Naminé and Sora.

"... I know you like me, Axel..." said Roxas softly, feeling his heart beat a little quicker. He wasn't sure if he dared believe what his 'friend' was saying. He didn't mean it, right? "If you didn't you wouldn't be my friend... y'know?" he asked, sounding horribly like Rai at that moment. Nobody wanted to sound like Rai – he was just fReAkY.

"I HATE YOU SORA!"

"I LOVE YOU NAMINÉ!"

Everybody was slowly starting to loose interest in their conversation, and were talking amongst themselves, wondering where Aerith was. Probably crying over her beloved drama costumes as Ansem fed them into the liquidiser. We're having burgers made out of princess clothes today – no expense spared!

"... Well, yeah, obviously... But Roxas, I..." Axel looked embarrassed, as he looked away at the floor. He had to tell the boy, the thought had been floating around his head for a long time, and especially yesterday what with the whole princess thing. "I... I... er..."

"I LOVE YOU NAMINÉ!" stated Sora again, very loudly, but this time nobody bothered to look around. The antics were getting ... tiresome.

"Yeah... What Sora said..." muttered Axel.

Roxas' blue eyes widened. "What, you love Naminé?" he asked. He knew the true message he was trying to get across, but he didn't want to believe it. So he started talking, doing a wonderful impression of Sora. "BecauseIdon'tthinkRikuwouldlikeitifyouwentoutwithher,y'know?Don'twanttospoilahappyhappyhappyfriendshipImeanhappyhappyha-"

"No, you dummy..." said Axel softly, as Roxas still mumbled the word 'happy' continuously under his breath. He wondered if the blonde-haired boy was malfunctioning, and it was all his fault. "I don't love Naminé... I ... l-love... you... I think..."

"I LOVE YOU NAMINÉ!"

Roxas' eye twitched slightly, hearing Sora shouting over and over again, Naminé saying she hated him, hearing Riku and Kairi arguing over the whole Sora/Naminé situation, who loved who? Axel certainly didn't love Roxas... Maybe Roxas didn't want to believe he did, didn't want to believe how sincere his voice was, because he was scared ... his brain tried to work it out for him ... it was a ... a ... a trick! Yes that was it, Axel was teasing him... How did Axel KNOW Roxas liked him?

... It was Larxene! Larxene told him!

"I LOVE YOU!" screamed Sora again.

"... I love you, Roxas ... got it memorized? ..." mumbled Axel, looking up at the boy again. Roxas was much easier on the eyes than the floor.

"I HATE YOU SORA!"

Roxas clapped his hands against his skull to keep it from shattering with all the words and shouting and ... he was nearly crying, as he stood up, needing some fresh air, to get away from everything...

"Roxas?" asked Axel.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU! LEAVE ME ALONE!" screamed the tormented boy, as if demons surrounded him, running out of the drama hall, knocking over Aerith. She shouted after him, but by that time he was long gone...

**-x-x-x- **

**L/N: **_If this is crappy quality – like all on the right side – don't blame me, blame the computer /narrows eyes/ it always had that shifty look..._


	11. Where's Roxas?

-Chapter 11-  
-Where's Roxas?-

Kairi checked her calendar, she stared at the question mark she'd scribbled in a haste, she could see the tear marks making it look like she'd written it an age ago, it had been two days. Where was he? Tears began to drip down her face. Roxas had gone, and no one knew why... No one... Well maybe someone did ... but she hadn't gone out for the past two days, the first day, she'd thought that Roxas would be waiting at the corner as he usually did. Sora sitting on the floor (whether it was wet or not) next to him. But she hadn't seen either of them, apparently this was because Roxas had not been there to throw a rock at Sora's bedroom window to wake him up. So Sora and Kairi had been late for school, then when Roxas hadn't been there at school, she asked all the teacher's she knew. None of them knew where he was.

When she went to school the next day, her worst fears had come alive, Roxas was missing. The posters were up – it had only been two days. But she guessed there were some people who really cared abut Roxas ... either that or his parents had noticed him missing for the past two days and forced some kids to put up posters. She had cried and cried, she may have had Sora, but Roxas had been her sane friend, the one she could always actually talk to. The tears were falling down her face quicker than before, she covered her eyes with her arm and jumped onto her bed, It wasn't fair ... where was he? ... "Roxas..." she cried.

"Kairi honey, you OK?" her mother's voice could be heard from downstairs, Kairi shouted a muffled 'Yeah' and sat up. She wanted to talk to someone, but who? If she talked to Sora, either she or Sora would cry, because Sora seemed to have severe emotional problems. She would have said Roxas ... but she couldn't ... not any more.

She picked up her phone and the phone book, she dialled a number and listened to the ring of the phone, it wasn't school time yet, maybe he'd still be at home, she bit her lip and crossed her fingers.

"Hello?" a cracked voice bubbled up from the other line. Maybe it was just the static that was making the voice go all weird, but Kairi was also suspicious that the person had been crying themselves a few seconds ago. Huh, how ironic... "Roxas? Is that you?" Ah, the voice was cracking again, it was tell-tale just-been-bawling-my-brains-out signs.

"No... It's Kairi..." mumbled the girl, pushing a few strands of her hair behind her ear with one hand, the other gripped tightly around her phone. "Roxas' friend..."

"Oh," said the person on the other line, a little bit coldly. Kairi flinched – he wasn't the only one missing Roxas! That didn't give him the right to be so mean! "... Right, hello Kairi. What do you want?"

"I was wondering... If you knew... anything about Roxas," she said, eyes closed. It was hard mentioning that name without crying, and that damned depressing calendar in her room was a reminder that Roxas wasn't there. That he was missing. It made it all realistic, somehow. She managed to convince herself it was all a bad dream, and then that calendar caught her eye and it hurt even more.

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line. "... I... I don't ... I don't know..." Kairi could tell the boy was hiding something, and she had to know what – they were talking about her best friend, her best friend who had been through everything with her.

"Axel – you've got to tell me." she hissed, if he was hiding something then she had the right to know. She cared about Roxas... "I care about him, even if you don't!" she said angrily.

A burst of static greeted her words, then a: "I do care about him... You don't know anything, Kairi, you don't know..." he cut himself off. If Kairi had been a forgiving sort of person she might have hung up because she could tell she managing to upset Axel, but she wasn't and wanted to know what was wrong.

"No, I don't know anything. That's why I'm asking you, if you're so knowledgeable and well-informed on the matter..."

"I ... I ... I'm sorry, Kairi, I'm sorry because he ran away because I ... I cared too damn much about him!" he said, voice cracking, tell-tale I'm-going-to-cry signs mingled with phone wires. "He ran away because I cared about him..."

"What did you do? Rape him?" asked Kairi coldly.

"What? I ... Of course I didn't!" replied Axel in a defensive voice, but it was ruined because he still had that 'I'm-gonna-cry' air swirling around him. "I ... told him ... I ... I ... I was so stupid!"

"You told Roxas you were stupid? I bet that broke his heart," growled Kairi darkly. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and tell me what you said! I NEED to know why he ran off, Axel, and as far as I can tell, it's all your fault!"

"..." Axel hung his head, feeling a heavy weight crush his pathetic little barely-beating heart into non-existence. Kairi's stinging words drove into him on all sides, something inside imploding in a horrible bloody mess of guts. She was just angry and agitated because she missed Roxas, but he missed him too, and when she said it like that, it was all his fault, really... All his fucking fault.

"Well? What was it, murderer?" spat Kairi, words drenched with poison. Axel shrunk back, seeming terrified of himself and the truth... He could be a murderer. Roxas could have died...

"I told him I loved him..."

∞∙∞∙∞

Axel wasn't going to school that day. Well, he thought he was at first, as he made his way towards the dull building, but Kairi's words came back to haunt him. It's all your fault. Murderer... Kairi was right, he wouldn't see the blonde boy at school, and he knew why - it was all his fault. He'd startled him, and he'd run off, and he'd killed him.

"It's not your fault. Screw Kairi," said Naminé in a comforting voice. "Crime rates are really, really low around here – he couldn't have got into any harm." Her voice was soothing, but her words did not console the red-head. Anything could have happened to him – he could have fallen into the sea or something.

"I'd rather not screw Kairi..." mumbled Axel, trying feebly to make a joke. Naminé giggled softly, it wasn't forced – she didn't know Roxas. To her, he was just an annoyance who was friends with the boy who liked looking up her skirt and the girl who busted Riku's nose. To her, he didn't mean anything, so she didn't see the need for worry...

Suddenly, a strong fiery rage of hatred for the girl next to him burned in his crushed, car-wreck of a heart. She would have been sick if she knew why Roxas run away, would have run away from him if she knew what Axel had said to him... She was a little kid. She didn't get it.

"Axel? Where are you going?" she asked him softly, but he wasn't going to listen to her. Her voice was grating roughly into the inside of his skull, no longer soft and gentle and soothing. She didn't understand anything!

"Leave me alone, Naminé!" he cried, running off in the general direction of the woods, vaulting over the small fence that separated the school from the vast expanse of trees. He couldn't face going to that building with false friends who didn't understand him and Kairi hissing he was a murderer. He couldn't face going to drama and not having Roxas as his partner, going around with people hating him because it was all his fault...

He ran off, Naminé staring after him, hands outstretched towards his retreating figure, fingers clasping around thin air, as if in a motion to pull him back.

∞∙∞∙∞

If he had to pick two words to describe his predicament, he'd have to pick: boring and hunger-inducing. Yes, with view of brown earthen walls of each side and trees rising up around him, it wasn't a desired place to be stuck in. He wondered in a very emo way if anybody would find him, but even if they did he'd probably be a pile of picked-apart bones and they'd never know it was him.

Being stuck down that hole had given him a lot of time for thinking, once the desperate, 'I-must-get-out' stage had passed. Most of the thoughts occupying his cranium were of the depressing variety, and mostly featured around a certain red-head, although there were some about dying of hunger and thirst intertwined with them. God, he was starving. And thirsty, so damned thirsty...

He wondered if Axel cared about him, although he guessed he probably didn't, not after he'd played around with his head and his feelings like that. He sighed, how long was it till he was dead? He looked at his wrist as though he might see a watch. He didn't have one, but that wasn't the point, it was dark ... very dark. It hadn't been as dark when he had landed in this pit of doom. That meant it must be night-time, or some very, very fat person was sitting on top of the hole.

The boy laid on his back and looked up, there wasn't a fat person there, it was night-time. He watched the stars and the moon and all the other glorious things that are visible at night. Pretty soon he fell asleep, dreams full of red-heads and a brunette.

∞∙∞∙∞

Sora sat next to Kairi on her bed, he knew she was upset so he didn't want to say anything. He put an arm round her, she thought about shrugging it off, but then realised that she found it comforting, she snuggled closer to Sora. He had walked all the way to her house just to check she was OK ... well, she wasn't, so Sora thought that he might be able to try and make it all better.

"Kairi ... I..." lately he hadn't been feeling himself, he hadn't felt like jumping about or giving butcher knives to bloodthirsty moogles, hell, he hadn't even felt like smiling! "I ... I'm sorry..." Kairi sniffed, and buried her head into his sleeve.

"S'okay Sora ... you didn't have to come..." Sora shrugged.

"I felt like it," he told her, no one was going to school anymore, Roxas disappearing seemed like some sort of excuse not to. Sora wondered what Roxas would have thought about that. He'd probably want Yuffie and Rikku to be forced to stay at school. Outside, he could hear children laughing and playing some sort of game of truth or dare, not quite realising how serious the situation was, "W-Why don't we go ... go..." He wasn't sure whether he should say it, Kairi knew what he was about to say. She lifted her head and wiped her tear-stained face.

"Okay..."

She stepped up from the bed and Sora did the same, she had been perched upon it like the middle of the thing would swallow her up if she dared place herself there. They climbed down the stairs and went out the door. As soon as the kids outside saw Kairi they were dead quiet. A pin could have been heard. Riku dropped a pin and it was heard.

"... What the hell?" Yuffie remarked, Riku shrugged and the kids started to play again.

Kairi had been living in the false hope that the kids all around them cared about her feelings ... obviously not, as she walked through them, holding hands with Sora, the children didn't give a damn about her, some even pushed each other into her for a joke.

∞∙∞∙∞

Roxas woke with a start, he was sure he'd heard something, maybe not, he closed his eyes again. He knew he shouldn't be sleeping, if he slept and he dehydrated or starved, then he would be dead, that's right D-E-A-D but Roxas didn't seem to care.

"Roxas?" a familiar voice asked, Hehe ... the voices ... they're calling me... the delirious Roxas thought. He tilted his head up and giggled feebly, the little man who liked to growl in his stomach tearing up his insides. Hmn, maybe the weird kid up there was giving him FOOD and WATER and would SMITE HIS ENEMIES!

"Nmmn..." replied the boy in a hunger-induced haze, feeling like flipping onto his stomach and hammering his fists against the ground chanting for food. FOOOOOOOOD... Food tasted GOOOOOOOOD.

"It is you! It's Roxas!" cried the kid in delight, tears almost rolling down his cheeks in happiness. Roxas frowned. He was stuck down a hole and the voices were after him and he was hungry and thirsty and smelt funny and his favourite jacket had a hole in it! "My God... I ... I found you!" he cried, and he really was crying now. Roxas frowned – who was this kook? "I'll be right down there to save you, Roxas, and I'll, I- woah!"

The boy teetered on the edge of his hole of despair and doom, and Roxas licked his lips at the thought of a meal, something to sink his teeth into and tear away at the flesh... Twigs were in his hair and dirt smudged all over his face and he looked like a tribal monster ready to sacrifice the boy for a feast.

"Arrgghhh!" he screamed, loosing his footing in the slippy brown muck, falling forwards rather comically, to land on top of the small blonde boy, crushing him and thoughts of FOOOOOOOOD when he blinked a couple of times. It didn't look like he would be getting saved any time soon... At least, not from the uncoordinated red-head with the long, stick-like limbs.

"A-Axel?" he asked softly, getting torn apart from the inside by the voices screaming at him to eat something. To drink something. Whether it be blood or ... mud ... he didn't care. It was hard to keep his voice at a normal level, to stop himself from trying to eat his not-so-saviour. But that wouldn't have been good table manners. Yet there wasn't a table in sight... "What are you ... owch ... you doing here?" he muttered weakly. He needed something to drink, he was rotting away in the hole... He didn't want to die!

"I, er, went to find you," said the red-head, blushing slightly. There wasn't enough space in the hole for the both of them, really, and Roxas smelt really, really funny... And he was getting his school clothes all dirty... His mother would be really, REALLY proud of him. "Why did you run away?"

There was a long pause, and Roxas shook from the cold, wrapping his arms around his body to keep warm. Axel sighed, and motioned for Roxas to come over to him. The blonde boy moved over to Axel, and the red-head wrapped his own arms around him to keep him warm. Axel was getting cold, too.

"... I ... don't know... I thought you were..." Roxas' eye twitched, it was hard having a normal conversation when his brain was fluffed up with thoughts of burgers and pizza and fries and ... fizzy drinks... Nice food... Good food... The food would not harm him... "Ah, screw it. Do you have any FOOOOOOOOD?!" he asked, turning to look at Axel, still shaking despite the arms wrapped around him.

Axel might have laughed at the demonic look on his face, but it was sort of creepy and Axel knew he'd been stuck down that hole for ages and was probably near-dying due to lack of food and water. So it wasn't funny – not at all. And now Axel was trapped down there with him and he had left his phone at home.

"Roxas, do you have your phone with you?" asked Axel, ignoring Roxas' scary, food-induced question.

"Yes," said Roxas coldly, pointing at a weird ... object on the ground ... It wasn't one object, it was several, crushed shards of what was once a cool, posh mobile phone all drenched in sticky mud. "Must have ... smashed ... fell ... I need food," moaned the boy, the world spinning around him as he twisted his body around and gripped onto Axel to prevent himself from falling over. Axel was nearly pulled forwards by the deranged boy, but he managed to steady himself. "I'm so damned hungry..." he muttered. "I'm hungry... I'm hungry... NOBODY'S LISTENING TO ME!" he cried.

Axel tried to hide the fact he was blushing at how close Roxas was to him, a worried look spreading across his face. "Woah, calm down, I'm listening to you..."

Roxas smiled softly at his comforting words, and rested his head on Axel's chest, wrapping his arms around him. If it wasn't down a hole and Roxas and Axel weren't coated with mud and Roxas wasn't half-dead it might have been semi-romantic. "Ah, good old Axel... Always listens to me... Always there... ALWAYS THERE!" he cried in a fit of insane-ness, a 'look' crossing his face like he was thinking about eating Axel to see if he was edible.

"Er..." Axel was getting very, very disturbed. Roxas was acting like SORA and that was a very, very scary thought. He wondered how Sora was...

"What was the last thing you had to eat?" inquired Roxas, managing to force his voice back into it's normal pitch, not all weird and high, as he raised his head to look at Axel. He was so damn hungry... AXEL WOULD FIX THAT.

"Er..." Axel repeated, still worried. That look was still in the boy's blue eyes, the demonic one Sora always got when he would sic his moogle on Riku with orders of 'bring me his head back on a silver platter. Or in a sunhat – I don't care... JUST AS LONG AS I HAVE HIS HEAD!' "Er..." Axel was afraid if he didn't answer correctly Roxas would send the moogles after him. "I don't remember..."

"So damned hungry," hissed Roxas again, looking up at Axel. "So damned hungry... So damned hungry... I need something to eat foodisgoodifyouhavefoodyoudon'tdie..." His voice was going all weird again. "I know! I could find out for you!" he said brightly. So damned hungry... He'd do ANYTHING for food...

"Find out what?" asked Axel, backing further away from the boy until his back hit the wall and he cursed because it got all weird and sticky. Roxas was coming closer to him and – dear god, he was going to eat him! Nooooo! What had happened to his pretty little Roxas?

"I'm hungry..." mumbled Roxas, and he was getting too close to Axel, and the red-head knew there was nowhere left to run… He was trapped in a damned hole with a maniacal boy who seemed hell-bent on eating him… And Axel never got around to telling his beloved parents how much they meant to him and how much he didn't love them… Sniff, oh, now he'd NEVER get that chance… Oh woe…

Axel blinked, green eyes meeting the very intense gaze of clear blue ones, and how the hell did Roxas get so close? And what was he doing? … If he was going to eat Axel, wouldn't he have just swallowed him?

The demon-possessed blonde boy drew his head closer towards Axel's, and his heart seemed to stop beating moment, as Roxas pressed his lips softly against his.

Oh crap … This was awkward… Was this some big complex scheme so he could distract him and then swallow him whole? Somehow, he didn't think so, as Roxas kept his one-sided kissing, becoming more and more insistent.

Axel wished that this was happening at some other time and place, like maybe, um, NOT DOWN A HOLE covered in MUD with an INSANE Roxas who was obviously INSANE INSANE INSANE who wanted to EAT him! Maybe another time and place where it was more ROMANTIC.

Oh well… At least Roxas was actually kissing him… That had to count for SOMETHING.

Axel pulled the blonde boy closer to him, started to actually kiss him back, pressing his hands to his back to keep him from running away, applying just enough pressure as a warning that if Roxas tried to eat him he would bite back…

After a while, the blonde boy finally drew back for breath, with a small smile on his face, as if he had been to heaven and back.

"Mmn… You taste of FOOOOOOOOD," said the boy in his INSANE state, still doing that cracked-out smile. "You taste nice," he informed Axel, moving his head forwards to kiss Axel. He tasted nice and he tasted of FOOOOOOOOOD and that was GOOD.

∞∙∞∙∞

Kairi and Sora walked on through the woods, it was getting dark and that was not good. She held onto his hand tighter, she was more scared than she had ever been in her whole life. Noticing her fear, he drew her closer. He couldn't think why but he felt more like a normal person. Usually, he'd be in an insanely happy state. But first of all, he was with Kairi and Kairi always calmed him down, second of all it was dark and when it was dark, he got scared and so didn't feel like being happy much anymore. And third of all, Roxas was missing. Enough said.

"It will be OK … we'll find him, don't worry…" He wrapped his arm round her and they lead each other on through the trees and bushes and any other stuff they encountered. They tripped over a couple of times, but nothing could stop them from getting closer to their best friend.

Finally they reached a clearing, they looked around a bit. "Do you … Do you think he could have been here?" asked Kairi quietly, Sora suddenly felt a buzz of energy. He was sure he had been here. Roxas left a kind of mark, either that or the hot chocolate he'd had last night was coming back to haunt him.

"Ungggh…" Kairi swivelled her head to where she could hear someone mumbling something. She grinned at Sora, it could be Roxas! She rushed over to where she thought it was coming from.

"Roxas? Roxas, is that you?" she looked around, before slipping. She clung onto the rock and climbed back up, that pit sure did look deep. Sora grabbed her hand. She wasn't falling down any old pit without him having some say in it.

"Watch out!" he laughed, grabbing her by the shoulders so she couldn't escape. He then looked down the pit. He could see two boys, a red-head and a blonde boy, they looked like they were asleep, one was sitting on the other's lap and had his head lolling half way down the other kid's arm. The other kid was resting his head on the blonde boy's head, breathing deeply. The blonde kid however didn't seem to be breathing at all. "Kairi…" he murmured, "He's down there … KAIRI! HE'S THERE, WE FOUND HIM KAI!! WE FOUND ROXAS … We found Roxas … he's THERE!!" he was skipping about joyfully.

Kairi laid down on the floor and edged closer to the hole, she wasn't going to fall down this time, he really was there, but she noticed Roxas' lack of breathing, "Sora … Sora … he needs help, Sora get your phone … NOW!" she barked, grabbing his phone and dialling a number.

**-x-x-x-**

**L/N: **_/LE GASPE/_


	12. What the hell have I done?

-Chapter 12-

-What the hell have I done?-

"Where … Where am … Where am I?" the boy blinked before noticing the flurry of red wrap hold of him tightly round the neck. He instantly thought of Axel.

"Kairi … I don't really think Roxas appreciates being killed just after he's survived…" an unfamiliar voice informed the girl. Roxas opened his eyes and found himself in a totally different place to the one he remembered. It was white – blinding white. Once his eyes had got used to the surroundings and were staring at the ceiling, rather than the embarrassed girl and mysterious person, he instantly thought … 'FOOOOOOOD'.

"Sorry Roxas…" Kairi bent down next to his bed, she sighed happily, before exploding with happiness, "Roxas! You're HERE! Roxas!!" she calmed down again, and slipped her hand into his. Sora looked on, he wasn't worried, Roxas had always been closer to Kairi than he had to Sora.

"Kairi…" murmured the boy, "Hungry…" Kairi stifled a giggle, and passed him a biscuit. Roxas grabbed it and rammed it into his mouth, food tasted good. Kairi produced a packet of the cookies and watched him eat, snatching quick glances at Sora as she did so. He looked tired, not his usual self. He even sounded different. She sighed and smiled.

"Better?" she asked the blonde boy laid in his white bed, white was usually meant to signify … well … nothing really, for the emotional purposes really - I mean would you go to a hospital coloured in nothing but black? But now Kairi knew that forever more, she'd relate it back to the time when Roxas opened his eyes and she gave him a biscuit – White equals Happiness. Unless it involved some sort of white dress on a little blonde girl.

"Better," the boy nodded happily, he was feeling much better, but he couldn't remember anything after he'd run away from school some day. It was all a blur.

"Hey! What about me?" the mysterious person asked Roxas.

"W-Who are you?" Roxas squinted; his eyes still hadn't completely adjusted to the light. He could tell the mystery person was hurt by this question, but Roxas really couldn't tell who it was. Suddenly memories of a boy kicking and screaming on the floor, trying to keep Naminé to 'stay' popped up in a train of convient clips. "S-Sora? It doesn't look like you…"

"Well … Sora hasn't really … been … himself lately…" Kairi told Roxas, she was shaking. Roxas was alive, even though he had been diagnosed with malnutrition – not severe malnutrition, but malnutrition none the least.

"Oh … Okay…" Roxas nodded. He was so happy to see his two best friends, but he had no idea what to do next, maybe one of them would do some sort of act or something. Or maybe not.

"So … why were you sitting on Axel's lap when we found you?" asked Kairi, intrigued. Roxas blinked a couple of times before being able to take in what she had just said.

"Wh-What?" he asked, he sounded a little frightened, Kairi giggled and laid a warm hand on his forehead.

"Oh, have you forgotten? Well, when we found you, you seemed very cosy sleeping on Axel." She informed the now very scared boy.

"B-But … why was Axel even there?" asked Roxas nervously, "Why was I in there?"

"Well … erm … you don't really don't remember, huh?" Kairi began, resting her head on the bed, "Well, he sort of … erm … well … the thing is … he said that … that … that he … loved you…" everything all came back to Roxas … everything but what happened in the pit.

"But why was Axel in the pit?" he asked, Kairi yawned, her head still on the bed.

"Dunno…" she said sleepily, "I guess he wasn't the only one trying to find you…" she closed her eyes, "Heh heh … I'm a hero…" Kairi mumbled, yawning again. Soon deep breathing could be heard coming from the girl.

"How long have you been here?" asked Roxas, wondering whether she was tired because they had been waiting for him or because Sora had fed her sugar, and he knew all too well what happened when you have too much sugar... all too well... Sora shrugged and scared Roxas even more. Sora was not being Sora-like. "What's wrong with you? Why aren't you jumping about like a mad demon?"

"Dunno … because I was … I was scared I guess…" Roxas edged further away from the boy, this was the first time EVER that he'd heard Sora say a sentence without mentioning 'awwwlookattheeeeeelicklemoogleissocute' or 'waffles'.

"Okay…" Roxas said, he really didn't know what to do now. He was actually bored. That was weird, he had just 'come back from the dead' and he was BORED. Some people – they just weren't grateful.

"Yeah … anyways … I'm going to go get some … sugar … or something…" Sora sidled off, leaving Kairi sleeping and Roxas confused. He wasn't confused about Sora anymore … sugar … sounded good enough to change him back. But he was confused about Axel … what the hell had he done?

∞∙∞∙∞

Axel smiled cautiously, "Mmm hmm…" he mumbled, Roxas watching him steadily. He was laid in that damned white bed and Kairi was still sleeping next to him, he knew her knees would hurt when she woke up. He had thought about hauling her up onto his bed or a chair or something more comfortable. But when he was about to get up, he flopped back down again.

"So … you okay then?" asked Roxas for the umpteenth time. Axel nodded again. "I-I'm sorry…" he bent his head down, he felt like pulling the sheets right over his head and hiding his embarrassment and shame in them.

"For what?" asked Axel, wondering why he should be sorry. Plus he hadn't mentioned the kiss. He wondered whether the boy ever would.

"For … For running away … I shouldn't have had; I was stupid…" Roxas' face burned up. He felt so embarrassed, he didn't want to mention about Axel stating that he loved him.

"Okay…" Axel didn't notice that Roxas' cheeks looked as though they were on fire. He was watching the boy's eyes, did he even remember? "Erm … Roxas?"

"Yes?" asked Roxas cautiously, twisting his head upwards towards Axel.

"Never mind…" Axel bent his head to the side, Roxas probably had forgotten. Maybe he had just been trying to eat him and just remembered Axel as some sort of forbidden steak or something.

"Yeah … Axel … there was one thing I was wondering about … well … Kairi said that … they found me and I was … well … I was sort of … sleeping on you…" He looked straight into Axel's eyes, forcing him to answer.

"Well … basically … you were going crazy because you were suffering from malnutrition … and it was cold and you were cold and so I was trying to keep you warm … and we…" Axel stopped. Roxas looked confused. _Damn, he looks so cute like that…_

"Why were you there anyway?" asked Roxas, as though he were pondering the meaning of life.

"Because I came looking for you and well … I found you!" Axel happily exclaimed, although he wasn't feeling so happy, Roxas obviously didn't remember. It would have made it awkward if he had. But Axel had to say something or he'd burst. And now seemed the right time – Roxas was incapable of running away, as he was laying on a hospital bed and wasn't even able to get out to move his friend. It was always the way – human feelings, why did they cause such a fuss? "Erm … Roxas … I don't know if you remember, but you … well…"

"Well what?" Roxas asked feebly, he was thinking the worst and he knew the worse was about to come.

"Well … heh heh … you sort of … kissed me?" Axel asked nervously. Roxas gulped, and this time he did hide under the blanket, muttering 'Oh god…' "Erm … are you okay?"

"No … I feel sick…" Roxas mumbled, his voice muffled by the bedding. He really did feel sick, he knew he had feelings for Axel. But surely he had not been as crazy as to _kiss _him. "It's not faaaair!" he whined, causing Kairi to sit up dreamily.

"Wh-What? Oh! I'm awake … OW! My knees!!" she sat, cross-legged, and rubbed her knees, before she noticed Axel, "Oh … hello … Axel" she said dryly. "What are you doing here?" she still hadn't forgiven him for being so mean to her earlier.

"I don't know … I'll just go…" he walked out the room and Roxas peered over the bed sheets. Something inside him was dreading it, but something inside him couldn't wait for drama lesson.

**-x-x-x-**

**L/N: **_Och... me so bored... Did you know 'Ouran High School Host Club' is very good? I watched it. It's a damn shame it's only 26 episodes... And at the end their like: "We'll be waiting for you!" And you're like: "BUT WE CAN'T! BECAUSE YOUR SHOW HAS FINISHED, FINISHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!"_

_Well, that was my opinion anyways..._


	13. End

-The End-

"So, children, welcome once again to our lovely drama lesson!" beamed Aerith in her merry, hee-hee-I-smoke-pot hippie way. She spun around to emphasize she **was** a hippie, as her skirts billowed around her legs. "Today we're going to have a wonderful time because we're all going to do one big play to prove we're all one big happy family! Albeit a little dysfunctional…" she said, casting a large blue eye over Sora who was giggling softly to himself, mumbling something about the internet and pictures of panties. She shuddered, wondering what sort of websites the brunette had access too…

"Woo-hoo!" cheered a few of the kids, and Lulu almost seemed close to punching her fist in the air in jubilation – she had an excuse to sashay away in the chaos that would surely follow and couple herself up with somebody who wasn't Wakka.

"And, to spice things up a little bit, you are allowed to change your partners around to make it seem like a lovely little drama with people splitting up and forming new relationships! Right, that's all I'm saying… You sort out the rest yourselves, A-OK?" asked the teacher, sitting down nimbly like a regal queen, ready to answer any questions fired at her.

Kairi shot a sweet little smile in Sora's direction, and Naminé and Riku exchanged knowing looks. Axel looked at Roxas hesitantly, wondering exactly what was going to happen … This was going to be chaos, if they had to incorporate Wakka in ANYTHING.

∞∙∞∙∞

"Lulu, man? Why you leave me, man?" chorused Wakka, attempting to look heart-broken, but it looked more like he had a stomach ache or was hungry. He was just not that good at being romantic, as Selphie patted him on the shoulder consolingly as the raven-haired girl fled into the awaiting arms of … Tidus.

"Don't beat yourself up, Wakka," smiled Selphie brightly, shooting him one of her dazzling smiles. "She was far too flighty for you… But, oh, they do look happy," she giggled softly, scuffing the tips of her trainers against the ground, doing a wonderful impression of being shy. Aerith, the only person in the audience, clapped and applauded – they really had improved. Well, maybe Wakka hadn't, because that was impossible, but … Selphie looked like she was being SERIOUS. "Hey, I know what'll cheer you up! How about we go _dancing_?" she inquired, spinning around, becoming joined by several dozen over members of the extensive cast, to prove they were now in a nightclub of some kind.

Riku and Kairi were stood in the corner, arguing, everybody else frozen in place so all eyes (the eyes of Aerith) were fixed on them.

"But I thought we had something SPECIAL, Kai!" cried Riku, looking like he actually cared about what was going on.

"Yeah, special, like you trying to look up my SKIRT! Take the hint, Riku, you and I are officially OVER!" God, Kairi felt so good stating that fact – not that they'd been officially 'together' to begin with, but she wanted to squash all rumours. "Sora is so much prettier and sweeter and nicer and braver than you," she hissed, turning her attention to the delightful little brunette who came running towards her. She laughed, and they met in an embrace, sharing a quick kiss, Riku trailing away, looking depressed, until Naminé placed her hand on his shoulder in a consoling way.

"Don't worry, Riku, even if that _bitch_ doesn't appreciate you, I always will," she smiled, batting her eyelashes in a winsome way, as they trailed off.

Roxas tugged at his sleeve, as Yuna pushed him onto the stage, winking in a rather conspiratorial way, to signify it was his cue.

"Um… Oh … dear … It appears my date has stood me up…" he said, with no real emotion, looking around. And then he gasped: "SELPHIE, HOW COULD YOU?!"

"I'm sorry, Roxas, but I prefer WAKKA over you!" trilled Selphie innocently, and Roxas had to bite back laughter. Who seriously would prefer Wakka over anybody? She wouldn't prefer Wakka over road kill… Not even a dead turtle that looked a bit like some fat kid…

"I … guess … I'm all alone then. I better leave," sighed Roxas, he was so damned good at being emo. Well, a lifetime's worth of practise had led up to the depressing, train wreck of a boy he was today.

Yuna slammed Axel forcefully in the ribs to indicate it was his turn, in pain, the red-head staggered onto the stage like some sort of wounded war veteran. Damn, Yuna could sure elbow people hard … and painfully…

"Wait! Don't leave – I'll dance with you if you want," Axel recited the lines the control-freak Kairi had bestowed upon him, and a small smile tugged at the blonde haired one's lips, as he moved forwards and allowed Axel to pull him towards him.

Kairi tilted her head to see what was going on, arms wrapped protectively around Sora, and Riku tilted his head to see the drama unfold, arms wrapped protectively around Naminé.

Roxas smiled softly up at Axel, and it wasn't a child's play anymore. It was something serious. He had convinced himself that Axel was messing around with him because he was afraid of the truth, but he couldn't act like a little kid and keep running from it and falling into pits of doom and despair. Quite literally, actually.

"Your eyes are really pretty," whispered Axel softly, and Roxas knew that compliment was directed at him and him alone, for nobody else to hear, as he lowered his head down slowly, with meaning…

Roxas closed his eyes, not wanting the moment to end, as Axel's lips pressed against his, lost in the embrace they were tightly locked in, not noticing that everybody else was grinning at them and hopping off the makeshift stage. They were too busy kissing…

"Should we tell them that it's time for third lesson?" Kairi asked Aerith, looking at them sharing a … moment … not that she was nosy or anything, but it was sort of hard to look at anything else. Even Naminé was staring, looking a little traumatised, true, but Riku was there to protect her.

Aerith grinned. "Nah… I don't think so… Let 'em get in trouble."

"You're a teacher – you're meant to care," said Sora in his hyper way, grinning like a schoolboy … but he was a schoolboy. "BUT I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING AND THAT IS WHY I HAD WAFFLES FOR BREAKFAST!"

"If it's all the case of love I'll turn a blind eye," hummed Aerith, watching the two boys. She wondered if Demyx would be willing to play some pretty romantic music and then Marluxia could come and throw flowers at people… Yes…

Unless the flowers impaled people in the eyes. Like some sort of... Oh, I don't know, flowery scythe. And that would not be fun…

Besides, she didn't think they needed anybody else. They looked just fine as it was.

**E.n.d**

**L/N: **_End. End... End...? At the moment – it has been 'E.n.d' for at least four months. I was just soooooooooooooo lazy and didn't put it up. So, this week, I was nice (it was half-term) and I put the chapters up EVERY DAY:)))))))))))))) Except for the day when I wasn't there and Skitts was meant to put it up... and she DIDN'T!! _

_Stoopid girl..._

_I feel weird now... I never thought this story would ever be 'Complete'._

_Wow..._

_REMEMBER - I LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLL!_

**S/N:**_ Skitts just can't be bothered with these, can she?_

_/tuts/_

_Ah well..._

_AT LEAST I GAVE YOU A NOTEEEEEE!_


End file.
